Men's Tennis Makes Strong Run at Regionals

Competing against some of the country's best collegiate men's tennis players, the University at Buffalo men's tennis team had nothing to lose going in to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's regional tournament hosted by Virginia Tech over the weekend.

In the end most of the Blue and White's singles players and doubles teams made it past the first round, but none got past the second.

Representing UB in singles, Nick Zieziula and Mike Rockman both notched first round victories before ultimately falling in the second round of play.

"Our goal is always to try and go one step further than the year before in whatever we do and this year we got more players qualified into the tournament than ever before and we won more matches than ever before," said Zieziula.

Zieziula tallied a win in his first round contest with a 6-4, 6-0 confidence-building win over Brown University's Phil Charm.

"I started getting into some more points on his service games and all of a sudden momentum shifted and I took over for the rest of the match," said Zieziula. "After a win like that, coaches from other schools make comments because they notice and you definitely have confidence."

Meanwhile, Rockman was successful in the first round as he beat Mhamed Mekaoui of Robert Morris 6-4, 6-2.

But the second round of play told a different story for both players, as Zieziula and Rockman both fell to their respective opponents and were ultimately eliminated from the singles portion of the tournament.

After forcing tiebreakers in both sets Zieziula fell to Hofstra's Nikola Djordjevic 7-4, 7-3 in a gutsy second round performance.

"This guy (Djordjevic) has been in and out of the national rankings, he has experience on the pro circuit. I couldn't have asked for much more from myself," commented Zieziula. "It was a match where literally you are an inch or two away from taking it your away."

Rockman faced a daunting task in the second round of singles play, as he was matched up against the 10th seed in the tournament. Stephane Rod of Virginia Tech scored a convincing victory over Rockman 6-2, 7-5.

Rockman teamed with Josh Liederman in the doubles portion of the competition to score a close first round doubles win over Derrice Chou and Chris McCoy of Boston College, 9-7. Once again, the second round is as far as the duo would advance, as they fell 8-1 to Mickey Gallagher and Reed Hagmann of Colgate.

Also for the Bulls, Zieziula teamed with Matt Kennedy to represent UB in doubles action. Zieziula and Kennedy were eliminated in the first round 8-3 by the talented Harvard duo of Brandon Chiu and Gideon Valkin.

"As a team we take this (tournament) as a positive step in wrapping up the fall and looking forward to build on it for the spring," said Zieziula.

Yules Hadisubroto was another player who made the trip for the Bulls, although the junior was denied the chance to compete in the main draw of the tournament. Hadisubroto fell to Antonio Aniello of St. Joseph's in the qualifying round of play following a hard-fought 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 match.