Men’s Tennis Inks Two for Upcoming Season
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New head coach Rob Bareford has added two signees for the 2024-25 season, and the good thing is he pretty familiar with both of them. Dario Ciobotaru, a sophomore transfer from Montana State and Aditya Balsekar, a senior transfer from Radford, have both been signed and will be a part of Lobo Tennis for the 2024-25 season.
Ciabotaru comes to UNM as a transfer from Montana State by way of Bucharest, Romania, and Bareford served as his head coach last year. As a freshman, he won 21 matches playing anywhere from No. 1 to No. 3 singles. He’s had Mountain West success as well with wins over Boise State’s Taiyo Kurata (7-5, 6-2) and Air Force’s AJ Moore (7-6 [7-1], 7-5).
He was a finalist at the 2023 Boise State Invitational in singles, winning three straight matches before falling in the final in three sets.
Ciobataru is a four-time Romanian National Team member, and he was ranked No. 6 in the under-18 category in Romania in 2021-22 with a ITF ranking that went as high as 667. It’s verified UTR in singles is 11.78. He also owns eight tournament titles in Romania since 2019, including the National Tournament Next Gen Trophy in 2023.
“After coaching Dario last year, I’m excited to see him continue to grow and get better,” said Bareford. “He will immediately contribute for us.”
Bareford also recruited and coached Balsekar, but he coached the Mumbai, India native at his first coaching stop of Radford University. Balsekar was a hard out for the Highlanders, owning a 43-8 overall singles record and a UTRs of 12.04 for singles and 12.07 for doubles.
He earned first team All-Big South honors as a sophomore and as a junior as he went a combined 12-0 in Big South play over those two seasons. He led Radford to the 2022 Big South Tournament Championship and an NCAA Tournament berth, winning both his doubles and singles flights in the title match.
Balsekar earned an ATP rank of 1334 in singles and 2055 in doubles and he won an ITF Junior Championship in Bangledash. Recently in singles, he won a PTT $25K in Taiwan.
“I’m thrilled to coach Aditya again after recruiting him to Radford and coaching him for two years there,” said Bareford, adding, “We won a championship together and I can’t wait to go for another.”
The two additions should fit nicely into a Lobo roster that boasts veteran returnees Aram Noroozian and Georgio Samaha. Avery Tallakson and Nicolas Recoura, who both won freshmen conference honors in 2024 are back as well, along with redshirts Daniil Kakhniuk and Philip Bosin of Albuquerque. The signees join Connor Dils of Albuquerque as newcomers for 2024-25.
