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Men's Tennis Has Perfect Day in Singles

by Frank Mercogliano

TUCSON, Ariz. — Six singles matches, six wins.  Pretty fun to be in midseason form on Day 1, but that’s where the Lobo men’s tennis found themselves as all six Lobos won their quarterfinal matches to advance to the semifinals in the opening day of the Arizona Invitational.  Action continues tomorrow and Sunday in Tucson.

The Lobos overall were 8-1 on the day, winning two of three doubles matches.

In singles in the Black Draw, the Lobos had both of it’s players advance to the semifinals.  No. 1 seed Alex Maggs got there with a straight set 6-4, 6-2 over Grand Canyon’s Wyatt Anderson and he now moves on to face No. 4 seed Luca Fe D’ostiani at 11:30 am Mountain Time on Saturday.  Also advancing in the draw was No. 3 seed Daniil Kakhniuk, who won a thriller 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) over GCU’s Ntal Richards.  Kakhniuk will face the No. 2 seed Daniel Torres of Northern Arizona at the same time as Maggs’ match.

In the White Draw, Georgio Samaha was the top-seed, and he cruised to a 6-2, 6-1 win over Adrien Coulome of Grand Canyon and he will take on Jared Horwood of Arizona in the semis on Saturday at 10:15 Mountain Time.

In the Red Draw, Aram Noroozian won as the No. 3 seed, taking down Mathieu Josserand of San Diego State 6-3, 6-4 and now will battle with No. 2 seed Leon Roider of Gonzaga.  That match will take place at 10:15 am Mountain Time.

In the Grey Draw Jan Pucalka bounced back from an opening set loss to win 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 over Maciej Zoimber of NAU, and now he faces the No. 2 seeded Dominique Rolland of host Arizona at 10:15 am Mountain Time.  The final singles draw was the Blue Draw, and Arda Azkara won handily 6-3, 6-1 over Dominik Buzonics of NAU, and he will face No. 2 seeded Sasha Trkulja of Gonzaga at 10:15 am Mountain Time.

In the Wildcat Draw of doubles, UNM saw it’s only loss of the day as Maggs and Pucalka were clipped 6-4 by Buzonics and Piotr Galus of NAU.  In the Beardown Draw, UNM got two wins.  The pairing of Samaha and Kakhniuk won 6-4 over Liam Spiers and Lennart Melzer of San Diego State in the round of 16, and they advance to the quarterfinals against the No. 4 seed of Maciej Zoimber and Alexander Groves of NAU.  That will take place on Saturday at 9:15 Mountain Time.  The other win was by Azkara and Noroozian, who blasted SDSU’s Josserand and Andre Saleh 6-1.  They advanced to the quarters where they will face Grand Canyon’s Paolo Rosati and Martim Marujo.