Tennis Sees Success At Opening Tournament

SAN ANTONIO – St. Mary's tennis hosted the St. Mary's Invitational over the weekend to open the season and Director of Tennis Bill Macom was pleased with the results.
 
Headed into the tournament, Macom stated the women's team had worked hard on doubles play and that was evident as Rattlers duos won all four flights. In singles, the women either won or reached the finals in seven of the flights where they had players competing, starting the 2021-22 season off on the right foot.
 
The men's tournament was used as a measuring stick of things to work on with 11 newcomers to the roster and Macom saw several highlights, including winning five of the 10 singles brackets, as well as things to work on in the upcoming months.
 
The men's team will compete Sept. 17-18 at the Trinity Invitational, while the women head to Kingsville for the Javelina Invitational.
 
WOMEN'S RECAP
Seniors Ashley Penshorn (Montgomery, Texas) and Marina Vigil (Gijon, Spain) won Flight A with a 6-4 victory over Trinity's top-team of Megan Flores and Cate Cushing. The pair went 3-0 on the weekend. In Flight B, junior newcomer Angela Vargas (Del Rio, Texas) teamed up with senior Maria Garcia (Valencia, Spain) to go 3-0. The pair only dropped two games on the weekend, winning 6-0 in the opening round and 6-1 in each of the next two en route to the title. Senior Alice Thane (Elloughton, East Yorkshire, England) and junior Gabi Ioannou (Melbourne, Australia) went undefeated to win Flight C, while sophomore Elena Munoz (Corregidora, Queretaro, Mexico) and freshman Valerie Idalia Navarro-Cavazos (San Antonio) went 2-0 to win Flight D while only dropping two games.
 
Penshorn lost in the finals of Flight A to UIW fourth-year player Brandelyn Fulgenzi. Penshorn won her opening two rounds in straight sets, losing only five combined games in the two matches. Vigil was victorious in Flight B, dropping only six games in three matches, including only one game until the finals. Both Thane and Ioannou were in Flight C. The pair reached the finals, but were paired against two from DBU instead of playing a teammate. Thane lost in straight sets to Caroline Hudson, while Ioannou lost in a three-set tiebreaker. She lost the opening set 6-4, bounced back to win set two before losing 10-4 in the final stanza. 
 
Garcia raced through Flight D, dropping only six games in the three matches, while Vargas won two of her three matches 6-0, 6-0 on her way to the Flight E title. Flight F was the most tightly contested final as Navarro-Cavazos and Ira Vogelmann from DBU played to extra points in the tiebreaker. Vogelmann won the opening set with one break of serve, 6-4, while Navarro-Cavazos got the late break in the second set to win 7-5 and Vogelmann eeked out an 11-9 tiebreaker victory. Munoz made quick work of her first two rounds in Flight G, but also fell 11-9 in the tiebreaker of the championship, doing so to DBU freshman Madison Stafford. 
 
MEN'S RECAP
In Flight A of doubles, senior transfer Chad Nguyen (College Station, Texas) and sophomore transfer Oskar Irdoja (Tallinn, Estonia) lost a tiebreaker in the opening round, but bounced back to win their next two matches 6-1 and 6-3 to win the West bracket. Flight B had a pair of Rattler duos, as sophomore Jake Faryniarz (San Antonio) and junior Sebastian Azcui (La Paz, Bolivia) blanked their opponents in the first round before losing a tiebreaker, 7-6 (5) in the semifinals. Freshmen Niklas Knoerr (Tübingen, Germany) and Alvaro Soler (Alicante, Spain) also won their quarterfinal match before falling in the semifinals. The two teams did not compete against each other for the 3-4 playoff.
 
Sophomore Ryan Koth (Boerne, Texas) and freshman Mario Urdaneta (Houston) paired up and won their quarterfinal match 6-2 before falling to eventual champions in the semifinals. The team did not finish their match in the 3-4 playoff. Freshmen Graidyn Bowe (San Antonio) and Rafael Macedo (Brazil) were also in Flight C, reaching the finals, where they lost to the same team from Trinity of Dalton Locke and Robert Chang. The lone champions for the Rattlers men were freshman Daniel Matheu Baldor (Madrid, Spain) and freshman Yu Senda (Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan) who only dropped two games in their two matches after receiving a bye in the quarterfinals.
 
Irdoja lost in the semifinals of Flight A to champion Hao Nguyen from Trinity and fell in the 3-4 playoff in a pair of tiebreak sets to the Tigers Cameron Krimbill. Flight B saw teammates Nguyen and Knoerr battle in the finals. Knoerr won in tightly contested straight sets, 7-6 (6), 6-4. Both reached the finals with a pair of straight-sets wins. Soler had a pair of long battles in the semifinals and finals of Flight C. He won the quarterfinals 6-0, 6-2 and fought out a 6-1, 2-6, 10-7 win in the semis before falling 6-2, 4-6, 10-7 in the finals to Caio Ravagnani from Our Lady of the Lake. Urdaneta also faced a long battle in the semifinals of Flight D winning 12-10 in the third set to reach the finals, where he lost to Cameron Goldstein from Sacred Heart.
 
Bowe won in straight sets in the quarterfinals, lost in the semfinals of Flight E and bounced back to only drop one game in the 3-4 playoff. Matheu Baldor won Flight F, victorious in straight sets in all three matches. He only lost one game in the two matches leading up to the finals and then ground out a 6-4, 7-6 (5) win over Trinity's Connor Whittington. Sophomore Nicolas Llosa (Lima, Peru) also won the title in Flight G, blanking Southwestern's Max Pearson in the finals (6-0, 6-0). Azcui lost to Pearson in the semifinals in three-sets, 6-1, 2-6, 10-4 and then gritted out a 2-6, 6-0, 12-10 win over Trinity's Robert Chang in the 3-4 playoff. Koth didn't drop a game in his first-round match in Flight H, but was unable to finish the tournament. 
 
Faryniarz won both of his matches to bring home the title in Flight I. He received a bye in the first round, dropped one game in the semifinals and won 2-6, 6-2, 10-3 in the finals over the Tigers Locke. Macedo was also in Flight I, losing to Locke in the semifinals after winning 6-0, 6-0 in the quarterfinals. He went on to defeat Julian Martinez from OLLU 6-0, 6-1 in the 3-4 playoff. Senda also won the title for the Rattlers, winning both matches in straight sets.