Tartans Swing Into Round of 16 at USTA/ITA Southeast Regional

(FREDERICKSBURG, Va.) - The Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team started competition at the USTA/ITA Southeast Regional Singles and Doubles Championship on Saturday, October 3 at the University of Mary Washington with three doubles teams advancing to round of 16 and five singles players moving on to the same round.

Senior Abhishek Alla (Hyderabad, India/IMG Pendleton School) and junior Kiril Kirkov (Tampa, Fla./C. Leon King) had a bye in the round of 64 of doubles and won their round of 32 match, 9-8(7-3). Senior Yuvraj Kumar (New Delhi, India/Millfield School) and freshman Daniel Levine (Highland Park, Ill./Boca Prep International School) are seeded third for the tournament and also had a first round bye. In the round of 32, the pair were victorious by an 8-4 score against William Bannister and Joseph Siami of Washington and Lee Univesity.

The third doubles team to advance is unseeded sophomore Jeffrey Chen (Carmel, Ind./Carmel) and junior Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central). The pair won 8-5 in the round of 64 against Harrison Elbert and Nick Sweeney of Haverford College before advancing to the round of 16 with an 8-3 win against Mohammed Ammouni and Justin McNab of Penn State Abington.

In singles play, Alla, seeded second, was the first to advance to Sunday's round of 16 with a 6-2, 6-1 win in the first round against Tyler Arsenault of Ursinus College and a 6-1, 6-1 win against Scott Thygesen of Johns Hopkins University. Junior Kunal Wadwani (Saratoga, Calif./Ballarmine College Prep), an eight seed, also advanced to the round of 16 with a 6-3, 6-1 win against Ammouni and a 6-0, 6-0 victory against Max Oberholtzer of Ursinsus.

Kirkov and Zheng also made the round of 16 for the Tartans. Kirkov won his first match against Robert Bishop of St. Mary's College, 6-1, 6-1, but needed a rally and tiebreaker to win his second match, 6-3, 7-6(7-3), after trailing nine-seed Luis Acaba of Haverford, 4-1, in the second set. Zheng upended Matthe Hwang of Shenandoah College, 6-0, 6-1, before defeating Simon Vernier of Swarthmore College, 6-3, 6-2, to advance to Sunday's play.

The final Tartan to advance was Levine who defeated Ryland Byrd of Washington College, 7-5, 7-5, in the round of 64 before closing the evening with a 6-2, 6-0 win against Patrick Hughes of Mary Washington.

Play resumes Sunday with doubles at 8:00 a.m. and singles at 9:30 a.m.