Bulls Open Men’s Tennis Season at Farnsworth/Princeton Invite

Buy Now

PRINCETON, NJ – The University at Buffalo men's tennis team opened the 2012 fall campaign with play at the Farnsworth/Princeton Invitational picking up strong results in both singles and doubles competitions.

In the Tiger Draw of the singles competition, Vusa Hove scored a pair of impressive victories to move into Saturday's semifinal round. Hove opened play with a 7-6 (7), 6-2 win over Dragos Dina of Cornell. Dina had previously earned points in ATP competition. Hove followed with a 6-4, 7-6 (2) victory over Wake Forest's Danny Kreyman, the third seed in the draw and the number 94 collegiate player in the country. Hove faces Princeton's Mathia Piscodic, the number two seed, in Saturday's 9:00 am semifinal.

Damien David also registered two wins in the Cordish Draw, including a three-set quarterfinal triumph. David breezed to a 6-0, 6-4 win over Penn's Zach Katz in the opener. The sophomore then won an opening set tiebreaker and then rallied for a third-set win in downing Sam Fleck from Cornell, 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-2. David faces Columbia's Ashok Narayana in Saturday's semifinal at 9:00 am.

In doubles play, David and Ivan Vereshchaga won a play-in match over Winston Lin and Dragos Ignat of Columbia to reach the main draw in the A Flight. David and Vereshchaga then scored an 8-4 win over Nick Bybel and Evan Zimmer of Bucknell to advance to Saturday's quarterfinal round against Yale's Patrick Chase and John Huang. Hove teamed with freshman Akhil Mehta to defeat Penn's Austin Kaplan and Blaine Willenborg, 8-1, to advance to the quarterfinals where they will face Georgetown's Charlie Carls and Casey DiStaso.

"We definitely got off to a better start this year than the past few. Even when we lost we played well, which is a good sign," said UB head coach Lee Nickell. "The work that we put in during the summer shows and we are looking forward to big things tomorrow."

Play continues through Sunday.