Jan. 14, 2012
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Behind the effort of four players advancing to the singles main draw round of 16 and all four doubles team advancing to the second round, the University of Kentucky men’s tennis team completed an impressive opening day of action at the Southeastern Conference Coaches’ Indoor Championships in Lexington, Ky., on Friday. Play was spread out through two locations with doubles action at the Hilary J. Boone Tennis Complex and singles action at the Lexington Tennis Club.
The day started with UK winning all four of its doubles matches. Sophomore Panav Jha and senior Eric Quigley began the day with a 9-7 win over Andrew Adams and Chip Cox of South Carolina. The UK duo will play the main draw’s No. 1 seed in Nassim Slilam and Billy Federhofer of Florida at 10:30 a.m. ET at Boone on Saturday.
Senior Alex Musialek and sophomore Alejandro Gomez also earned a win in doubles, taking down Ben Barnette and Carl Eguez 8-6. The tandem will play No. 7 seed Nathan Pasha and Sadio Doumbia on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Two other UK duos posted wins Friday with sophomore Tom Jomby and junior Anthony Rossi defeating Eric Diaz and KU Singh 8-5, while sophomores Maks Gold and Ryuji Hirooka took down Gonzalez Austin and Anton Kovrigin 8-2. Both UK tandems will play at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Boone.
In singles action, UK earned two first-round wins when No. 95 Jomby took down Adrian Froberg Skogeng of Ole Miss 6-7, 6-1, 6-4, while No. 11 Alejandro Gomez defeated Michael Thompson of Alabama. In the second round, UK played very well led by Jomby’s come-from-behind 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 26 Ignacio Toboada of Georgia. Three other Wildcats earned second-round wins after first-round byes with No. 36 Rossi defeating Ivan Machado of South Carolina 6-3, 6-2 and No. 13 Musialek making light work of Filippos Tsangaridis of Alabama 6-0, 6-2. No. 3 Quigley completed the day with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Chris Thiemann of Ole Miss.
Quigley has a career singles record of 140-43, sitting only one win shy of tying Jesse Witten (2002-05) for second all-time in career singles wins. Paul Varga (1982-85) holds the school record in career singles wins with a 144-80 post.
Singles action begins Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET at the Boone Tennis Complex, while consolation action will be played at the Lexington Tennis Club in the afternoon.
Sophomores Gold and Hirooka also played in the singles main draw with both falling in the opening round. Gold feel to William Kallberg of Ole Miss in a tight match 7-6(4), 6-7(0), 7-5, while Hirooka dropped a 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-1 match to Andrew Butz of Florida. Gold and Hirooka will play in consolation singles Saturday.
Updated draws will be posted throughout the weekend at the SEC Coaches’ Indoor Tournament Central page on UKathletics.com. Scores will also be sent out through the Twitter account @UKMensTennis, while a live interactive blog will be available for fans online beginning Saturday afternoon.
For more information on the Kentucky men’s tennis team, follow “UKMensTennis” on Twitter or search “University of Kentucky Men’s Tennis Team” on Facebook.
