Buffalo Men's, Women's Tennis open play at respective ITA Regionals

The more tournament-minded fall Tennis season sees its biggest weekend of the year in late October with ITA Regionals. Both UB's Men's and Women's teams, coming off a MAC Championship and a number of strong fall performances, respectively, sent three competitors to regionals.

Men

At the time of writing, I believe the men are done for the day, with all three singles and the doubles match in the books. From the four matches the Bulls produced three wins, with only freshman Ethan Nittolo falling, but not before a grueling, gritty match.

Facing Columbia sophomore Daniel Grunberger, Nittolo used a pair of comebacks in the first sets to nearly win the match in two. After trailing 5-2 in the first, Nittolo broke Grunberger twice while holding serve himself to lead 6-5. He'd ultimately win the tiebreaker 7-4. Nittolo fell down 4-1 in the second set before forcing a tiebreaker from 6-5 himself. He had match point at 6-5 within the tiebreaker, but Grunberger won three straight to take it.

I thought through the late stages of the second set Nittolo looked to have Grunberger on the ropes, but the freshman faded in the third set, losing 6-3, the deciding game coming on Nittolo's serve.

I was focused on that match throughout Amar Hromic's two-set win. Hromic jumped out to 3-0 leads in each set, in the first falling behind 4-3 before winning 6-3, and coasting in the second 6-1. Pablo Alvarez similarly rolled after an early hiccup in his 6-4, 6-2 victory.

Nittolo drops down to the consolation brackets, which begin play tomorrow at 1:00 PM, while Alvarez advances to face Eric Rubin of Columbia and Hromic Markus Schultz of NJIT. Should either or both win those matches, they'll play two tomorrow.

In doubles play, Alvarez and Hromic were easily victorious, beating a pairing from Farleigh Dickinson 8-1. They'll face off against Garcia and Tarwid (Hromic's Friday singles opponent) of Brown tomorrow.

Women

Either the women aren't completed yet or only saw doubles action today. Laura Holterbosch and Tanja Stojanovska went up against what I believe was the #3 seed in the draw from UMass and fell 8-3. The UB pairing was even at 2-2 and trailed only 3-4 before dropping the final four games. I'm not sure what consolation brackets might look like in doubles.

In singles, Tanja Stojanovska was paired with Nathalie Habegger of NJIT. They were set to start at 1:30, but I don't have results yet. Expect an update here. Should Tanja win, she'd play Star Makarome of Columbia tomorrow morning at 8:00.

Chantal Martinez-Blanco, matched with Iryna Kostirko of Boston University, was set to start at 2:45. She'd with a win play Gina Li of Columbia.

UPDATE: I know that Stojanosvka won, but not the margin. Martinez-Blanco is in action now, at 6:00 PM.