Men’s tennis opened up their season over the weekend in Ithaca, N.Y. at the Cornell Invitational.

Although host, Cornell University, dominated, winning three of the singles draws and both doubles draws, Stony Brook University’s Alex Markovich won the flight D singles draw.

‘Alex played extremely well,’ Head Coach Garry Glassman said. ‘More importantly he competed extremely hard.’

Markovich defeated Fernando Ferreira of UMBC in a tense three set final. The final two games were decided by tie breakers.

In other action, Ivan Rummel, Ilan Shvartz, and Juan Carlos Cotto were all first round winners, in the A, B, and C draws, respectively. None of the three was able to advance past the quarterfinals.

SBU’s second entrant into the A draw, Artem Baradach, was defeated in the first round. Will Allen also lost the first round of the C draw.

Both double entrants lost in the first round. Youseff Fassi-Fehri and Markovich lost in the A draw to the eventual champions from Cornell. Shvartz and Allen lost to another Cornell team in the B draw.

‘I don’t think we competed as well as we are capable of doing,’ Coach Glassman said of the weekend’s results. ‘We are a young team with no seniors, but with some raw talent. It will be a matter of some guys stepping up and setting an example of how to compete at the Division 1 level.’

The women began their season at the Army Women’s Invitational in West Point, N.Y. Every one of the women’s entrants won at least one match.

‘There were some mixed results. We had some good wins in a very strong field.’ Glassman said.

Paola Rodolfi made it to the finals of the B flight, before losing to the #1 seed from Buffalo.

‘Without question, the player that stood out was Paola Rodolfi,’ Glassman said after the tournament.

Sandy Wijeratne, who was seed #1 in the D flight, lost in the quarterfinals, but was able to recover and win the consolation bracket.

In the E flight, Shaina Murugan advanced to the semifinals. Erica Federgreen also had some success, reaching the round of 16 in the C flight.

Claudia Sona dropped her first match in the A flight, but was able to get to the quarterfinals in the consolation bracket.

The one doubles entrant, Brooke Flanigan and Victoria Vovsha, won their first round match before losing in the round of 16.

‘The women have a veteran squad and will look to reach the America East Finals for the first time since 2002,’ Glassman said while assessing the chances of his team this year.

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