The Tiffin University Men's Tennis team competed in the Topper Classic put on by West Liberty University. Through an incredibly difficult day 1 of the tournament that was plagued by off and on rain storms all day, the Dragons put up great matches with some dramatic finishes.
TU's first doubles team on was the pairing of Luis Ludena and Toby Cutting. The 1st doubles duo received a first round match against Alexandr Rudenco and Giorgi Datashvili of Bluefield State, a traditionally strong men's tennis program. Ludena and Cutting didn't back down as the pair started off keeping serve with their opponents before finally breaking them midway through the set. After several close points that ended in TU's favor, Ludena / Cutting had finished with TU's first win of the tournament, an 8-5 thrashing. TU fell in their second round match to Vitor Albanese and Kolja Hein of Edinboro 9-8 after losing an early lead.
TU's second doubles team is a new pairing of Elio Lezama and freshman Andrew Isaac. The two drew their first round opponent of Nenad Terzic and Joaquin Aguilera, a veteran doubles team composed of upperclassman. After an early lead that saw TU jump out ahead with an early break, the Dragon duo gave the break right back and were broken again as they lost two service games in a row. With their backs against the wall TU was able to break back and hold to take the set into a tiebreaker where the pair were able to prevail on an unforced error by Mercyhurst. TU took the set and the match 9-8 (7-5). TU fell in their second match 8-6 to Santiago Gutierrez and Camilo Moncayo of West Liberty.
TU's third doubles team didn't fare as well as the other two where Agustin Mangone and Justin Kopronica fell to Lukas Laipold and Pierre-Olivier Bedard of West Virginia Wesleyan. Mangone and Kopronica are a new pairing that haven't seemed to find their rhythm together just yet, but the doubles team does have the senior leadership of Mangone and the young promise of Kopronica who did quite well in the previous year in the Dragons' singles line up. TU was able to win their consolation match 8-2 over McCoy and Anderson of Edinboro before retiring in their semifinal match due to injury.
TU was able to get match experience for Brandon Fruits and Bobby Reid who lost their main draw match 8-2 to Alexander Lyudinovskiy and Thomas McIntosh of West Virginia Wesleyan as well as losing their consolation match 8-3 to Panariti and Lopez of Bluefield Sate College. The other pairing that TU brought for the tournament were freshman Spencer Collins and Jackson Mathias who were dispatched in their main draw match to Tristram Spitsnaugle and Jonathan Gainer of Davis and Elkins College and lost their consolation match 8-2 to Tye and Adkins of the University of Charleston.
Singles didn't go the Dragons' way on many fronts as TU was unable to go deep in most of the brackets as well as an injury that could have been much worse to freshman Andrew Isaac.
TU's two successful singles brackets were on opposite ends of the experience path as TU's freshman Andrew Isaac and senior Agustin Mangone both played quite well, pushing deep into the singles brackets, but both were met with ill fate.
At 3rd singles Andrew Isaac was rolling through opponents with a huge first round match victory over Santiago Gutierrez of West Liberty. Gutierrez had given TU trouble in the past, but Isaac dispatched the West Liberty senior quickly with a 6-0,6-1 win, putting him in a semi-final match against Conor McCooey of Mercyhurst. Unfortunately for TU Isaac injured his ankle running after a McCooey dropshot that forced TU's stellar freshman to retire up 2-1.
5th singles saw TU's veteran captain able to overcome large deficits in the match to win a big first round match for the Dragons. Mangone was down big in the first set before storming back to take the first set 6-3 and fell in the second set 2-6. Mangone dug down deep to take the third set tiebreaker 10-6 to push him into the semi-final against Arseniy Sklyarov of MeryHurst where Mangone would eventually retire due to injury down 1-4.
TU's 1st singles player Luis Ludena lost his singles match to Vitor Albanese of Edinboro 6-1, 6-1 while Elio Lezama lost his singles match at 2nd singles 6-2, 6-0 against Ramon Rodriguez of West Virginia Wesleyan. Toby Cutting fell in his singles match to Giorgi Datashvil of Bluefield State College 6-1, 6-3 while Justin Kopronica fell 6-2, 6-2 to Pablo Cimorra of West Liberty.
Overall TU played solid tennis for an opening season tournament and will take 3 players to the ITA Tournament in Indianapolis next weekend to compete for regional ranking points.