Oct. 18, 2008
LEXINGTON Ky. – With five players left in the men’s singles main draw, the University of Kentucky leads the list of schools with the highest number of athletes remaining in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Southeast Regional Indoor Championships this weekend held at the Boone Tennis Center.
Senior Bruno Agostinelli, seeded fourth, received a bye in the first round to advance to the second round. There, Agostinelli defeated Tanner Stump of Mississippi State, 7-5, 6-2. The top-seeded Wildcat will serve against Jon Hamui of Florida in a third-round match on Saturday at the Lexington Tennis Club.
Four other Wildcats won two matches Friday to advance to the round of 32.
No. 17 seed Brad Cox clinched both victories in straight sets. In the first round, Cox beat Adam Baker of Vanderbilt 7-5, 6-2. Later that day, the sophomore defeated Mississippi State’s Antonio Lastre 6-4, 6-4 to continue on.
UK freshman Eric Quigley, also seeded 17th, was pushed to three sets by Njal Stene of Stetson. Quigley dropped the first set 6-4 before rebounding to take the final two 6-4, 6-3. In the second round, Quigley swept Mark Bowtell of LSU in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4.
Fellow UK freshman Alex Musialek started his day against Alex Moye of Vanderbilt. Musialek took out the Commodore 7-6, 7-5 to move on. No. 17 seed Christian Vitulli of Georgia awaited Musialek in the second round but the young Wildcat was up to the challenge, winning two tight sets 7-5, 6-4.
Winding out the five third round contenders is UK sophomore Will Beck. The Wildcat opened the day by defeating against Alejandro Das Izquierdo of Eastern Kentucky 6-3, 6-1. Later Beck knocked off another No. 17 seed in Tennessee’s Matteo Fago in a marathon match.
After dropping the first set, 6-4, Beck battled back in the second pushing the set to extra games and a tiebreak. Beck squeezed past Fago 7-3 in the breaker to force a third set. In the final set, the back-and-forth battle continued into a third-set tiebreak. Again Beck got the better of the Volunteer winning the breaker 7-4 to advance to the next round.
UK Sophomore Alberto Gonzalez closed action late Friday evening with a three-set loss to No. 17 Joey Burkhardt of Florida 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-4. Earlier in the day, Gonzalez had defeated Dean O’Brien of Tennessee Tech 6-3, 6-4.
Sharing similar fate was Kentucky freshman Patrick Bandy. After a first-round win battle against Cesare Gallo of Stetson that went the distance 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, the Wildcat faced No. 17 seed Kalle Norberg of Ole Miss in the next round. Bandy fell to the Rebel 6-4, 6-3 in a hard-fought match.
UK senior tri-captain Shane Collins opened the regional Friday morning against Jorge Vazquez of Memphis. Vazquez won a tight first set 7-5 and carried the momentum in the second to clinch the match at 6-0.
Agostinelli and Cox opened the day with their doubles quarterfinal match at Boone. After holding for an early lead of Vanderbilt’s Baker and Alex Zotov, the Commodores broke the Wildcats to take a 2-1 advantage. But the Wildcats broke right back to put the match on serve at two-all. The two evenly-matched squads traded service games until the match was knotted at seven. Vanderbilt broke the serve of the No. 2 seeded Wildcats to take the 8-7 lead to serve out the match. The Commodores built an early lead in their final service game. The Wildcats turned away two match points before Baker and Zotov clinched the victory 9-7 to advance to Saturday’s semifinals.
All singles matches on Saturday will be held at the Lexington Tennis Club (LTC). The round of 32 begins at 1:30 p.m. with fourteen courts in action at the same time. All five Wildcats are scheduled to play at that time. Should any of the Blue and White advance to the round of 16, those matches will take place at 6:30 p.m. at LTC.
Singles quarterfinals are scheduled for Sunday at Boone with starting times yet to be determined. All four matches will play at once with live scoring on UKathletics.com.
Be sure to check UKathletics.com for match schedules, updated draws and results all weekend.
