Buffalo Men’s and Women’s Tennis open in Napa, Cornell

The fall season is more individual than the spring for collegiate tennis, but it’s nice to see both the UB Men and Women open up this weekend nonetheless. The Men, working with a lineup absolutely full of newcomers, will show us something new at every opportunity, while the women with their returning experience and year-over-year improvement will look to show they’re capable of really challenging for the conference title.

Usually I won’t combine them into one post, as they are different teams, but tonight that’s what’s happening.

Men’s Tennis

I don’t think the men brought a full contingent, but instead only four Bulls to Napa, as only Hao Sheng Koay, Ethan Nittolo, Villhelm Fridell, and Filip Grbic made an appearance.

Koay and Nittolo were undefeated on the weekend in singles, while in doubles each pairing — Grbic/Fridell and Nittolo/Koay — split their matches with a win over UNLV and loss to San Francisco.

UB takes two weeks off before the Binghamton Invitational.

SINGLES

Hao Sheng Koay (BUF) def. Kellerman (Tulsa), 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (3)
Ethan Nittolo (BUF) def. Gordon (Tulsa), 6-4, 7-5
Villhelm Fridell (BUF) def. Pritchard (Tulsa), 6-3, 6-2
Santos (Tulsa) def. Filip Grbic (BUF), 6-0, 6-4

Neto (UNLV) def. Filip Grbic (BUF), 6-3, 6-4
Hao Sheng Koay (BUF) def. Gage-Brown (UNLV), 6-4, 7-5
Ethan Nittolo (BUF) def. Solberg (UNLV), 6-1, 6-3
Croxford (UNLV) def. Villhelm Fridell (BUF), 7-5, 6-4

Ethan Nittolo (BUF) def. Roper (OSU), 7-5, 6-3
Scaglia (OSU) def. Filip Grbic (BUF), 7-6, 6-3

DOUBLES

Filip Grbic/Villhelm Fridell (BUF) def. Neto/Gage-Brown (UNLV), 8-7 (1)
Ethan Nittolo/Hao Sheng Koay (BUF) def. Solberg/Croxford (UNLV), 8-2

Marker/Jonhagen (USF) def. Filip Grbic/Villhelm Fridell (BUF), 8-4
Poysti/Brockstedt (USF) def. Ethan Nittolo/Hao Sheng Koay (BUF), 8-6

Women’s Tennis

Coach Maines’ group stayed closer to home, at the Cornell Invitational. Unfortunately, Cornell has not made brackets available, so I can’t say too much more than what UB’s got in their releases.

In a relatively small tournament with only two singles and one double flight, Buffalo made the finals in B Singles (Mercedes Losada Rubio) and Doubles (Margarita Kotok/Tanja Stojanovska).

Freshman Emel Abibula won the consolation bracket in her flight — it’s unclear whether it was A or B Singles — and we know that Anna Savchencko started the weekend in the A Singles flight. Haley Hollins, Laura Holterbosch, and Sanjana Sudhir all at least picked up opening wins in B Singles, as well. Sudhir advanced to the semifinal before falling.

In a bit of an oddity compared to the last few years, both UB teams will be in action on the same weekend later this month, as two weeks from now the women will host their annual UB Invitational.