WICHITA FALLS, Texas – The St. Mary's Men's Tennis team battled not only tennis players in the region, but also Mother Nature throughout the weekend at the ITA South Central Regional, hosted by Midwestern State.
The tournament spent much of Friday in rain delays and Saturday in lightening delays, but four Rattlers reached the round of 16 and freshman
Alvaro Soler (Alicante, Spain) advanced to the consolation finals despite all the start and stop action. Freshman
Niklas Knoerr (Tübingen, Germany) and sophomore
Nicolas Llosa (Lima, Peru) also advanced to the semifinals in doubles play.
Llosa blanked DBU's Will Fiala in his first match, 6-0, 6-0 and won a three-setter against Moritz Mayer (UT-Tyler) in the round of 32, 6-4, 1-6, 6-4. Against 10th-seeded Stefan Andrei, Llosa fell in straight sets 6-3, 7-5.
No. 13
Oskar Irdoja, a sophomore from Talinn, Estonia, also didn't drop a game in his first round, defeating UT Permian Basin's Conner Everett. In the round of 32, he got a late break in the first set and one in the second for the 7-5, 6-4 win over Rodrigo Mere (Western New Mexico). Third-seeded Jonathan Vega from WNMU got the better of Irdoja in the round of 16, 6-3, 6-3
Senior
Chad Nguyen, seeded 16th, won his first two matches by identical scores of 6-4, 6-1. He defeated Matthew Abbey from Midwestern State in the round of 64 and Enrique Sanchez from UTPB in the round of 32. Nguyen ran into fourth-seeded Gonzalo Fernandez (UTT) in the round of 16, falling 6-3, 6-3.
Knoerr also won his first two rounds, defeating UT Tyler's Leon Sell 6-1, 6-7 (3), 6-4 and then upsetting sixth-seeded Ben Westwick (MSU) in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3. In the round of 16, Knoerr dropped a 6-1, 6-3 decision to 12th-seeded Baptiste Mercier from Cameron.
Sophomore
Ryan Koth (Boerne, Texas) was victorious in his round of 64 match against UTPB's Jonah Neumaier, 6-0, 6-4 and then won the first set against No. 2 seed Egor Shestakov (UTT) 6-4, before suffering back-to-back late breaks of serve to fall 7-5, 7-5.
In the round of 64, sophomore
Jake Faryniarz (San Antonio) defeated Timon Kohler (UTPB) by identical sets of 6-3, 6-3 before falling to 11th-seeded Joaquin Bianchi (UTT) 6-1, 6-2.
Freshman
Rafael Macedo (Brazil) battled tough against eighth-seeded Zach Capone from DBU, losing the first set in a tiebreaker, 7-6 (4) before dropping the second set 6-3. In the consolation draw, Macedo lost a hard-fought three-set battle to Jonas Dixon (UTT), 6-3, 1-6, 10-7.
Soler lost 6-2, 6-1 in the first round to UTPB's Patryk Kosinski, but bounced back for a straight sets victory over Patricio Larrea (WNMU), 6-2, 6-2 in the consolation draw. In the round of 16, Soler dropped only two games to Alejandro Cortes 6-0, 6-2 and he won in straight sets in the quarterfinals over Sean Batkis from Cameron 7-6 (4), 6-2. Soler only dropped one game in defeating Jonah Neumaier (UTPB) in the semifinals, 6-0, 6-1 and he and Dixon had a long battle in the final, with Dixon winning 6-7 (4), 6-1, 10-7.
In doubles play, Irdoja and Macedo paired up to win 6-2 in the round of 32 over the UT-Tyler team of Yudai Watanabi and Alberto Rodriguez. They then knocked off eighth-seeded Vega and Javier Romero from WNMU. Top-seeded Alex Martinez Roca and Westwick (MSU) defeated the pair in the quarterfinals, 6-3.
Knoerr and Llosa buckled down in the tiebreaker to win the first round 7-6 (2) over Zach Capone and Grant Mckenzie from DBU and had an easier time in the round of 16 with a 6-3 victory over fourth-seeded Mercier and Carlos Vidal from Cameron. They defeated Shestakov and Nikita Chuev (UTT) 6-4 in the quarterfinals and lost a close tough two set match in the semifinals to top-seeded Martinez Roca and Westwick from MSU 6-3, 7-6 (4).
Koth and Soler lost a tough tiebreaker to Quentin Scharfenberg and Matthew Abbey from Midwestern State in the opening round, 7-6 (4). In consolation doubles, the pair received a pair of byes and then a default in the quarterfinals before losing 6-2 to the eventual backdraw champions in Brice Bradshaw and Corbin Ford (MSU).
No. 3 Nguyen and Faryniarz defeated Lorenzo Orellano and A. Cortes from Western New Mexico 6-2 in the opening bout, but lost in the round of 16 to Mayer and Sell (UTT) after a late break of serve, 7-5.
