Men's and Women's Tennis started their fall seasons this weekend with visits to invitationals at a pair of Ivy League schools. As I've said before, each team really makes their hay in the spring season, but the fall offers a few months of individual tournaments for everyone to stay in form.
I'll get to the men later today - and link them in the sidebar - but start with the women right now. This weekend's tournament hosted by Cornell was our first look at highly-touted freshman Chantal Martinez-Blanco, and we saw a pair of unexpected names join her in freshmen Mercedes Losada Rubio and Sanjana Sudhir. Other than graduated senior Laura Fernandez, UB is only missing Doris Aleksovska, who has transferred to UT-Rio Grande Valley, from last year's group.
UB's eight racketeers were broken up into four flights in the tournament. Martinez-Blanco and Tanja Stojanovska competing in the A Flight. Each won their first match on Friday, before Martinez-Blanco fell into the consolation while Stojanovska advanced to the semifinal today.
Dayana Agasieva and Sudhir both won their first matches, as well, before dropping into the consolation bracket in the B Flight, while Losada Rubio in the C and Laura Holterbosch in the D Flight each advanced to the semis. Maragarita Kotok finished Friday in the consolation of the C Flight.
On Saturday, UB's doubles teams advanced through their flights. I'm particularly interested in Coach Ortman Maines' pairings, since UB's most successful last year was Holterbosch and the now-departed Fernandez. Agasieva and Kotok linked up the in the A Doubles Flight, beating pairings from Syracuse and Towson to move into their semifinals. Holterbosch with Stojanovska managed the same in B Doubles, with wins over Binghamton and Cornell.
I don't yet have a full recap from today, but I know at least that Holterbosch won out to claim victories in both the D Flight Singles and B Flight Doubles. I'll update here when I can learn more from the rest.
Update: No one else won their flight. It's unclear to me who among the semifinalists advanced to the final or lost in their semifinal matches.
UB will have next weekend off before traveling to West Virginia for their invitational at the end of the month.
