TENNIS: Strong performance for men's tennis at Yale Invitational

Yale Athletics

This past weekend, the Yale Men Tennis team hosted the Yale Invitational at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. Penn State, Cornell, Buffalo and New Jersey Institute of Technology were among the participating teams.

On Friday, the Bulldogs picked up three wins to start the invitational strong. In doubles, the veteran duo of Luke Neal 25 and Renaud Lefevre 26 defeated Penn State's Alexander Sterin and Denys Forgaci 75. In singles, freshman standout Edward Liao 28 continued his dominant start to his college career, winning his match 60. 62 against Aman Sharma from Cornell. Lefevre also picked up another singles win, beating Sam Bossem of Penn State 67 (6), 62, 61. Krish Gupta 28 and Luke Neal were defeated in their singles matches.

Building on the momentum from the first day, the men's team had an impressive second day of the Yale Invitational. In doubles, Liao and Gupta defeated Charl Morgan and Sam Bossem of Penn State with a 63. Neal and Lefevre defeated a duo of Nittany Lions to win their match with a 76 (1).

In singles play on day two, the Bulldogs won three of their four matches.

Gupta led the way, bouncing back from a loss on Friday to defeat NJIT's Soma Fukuhara 63, 46, 64. Lefevre continued his impressive weekend, winning his match against Buffalo's Theodoros Mitsakos 64, 36, 64. Neal rounded out the team's scoring. by overwhelming Penn States Alexander Sterin 64, 63. Liao fought hard but fell to Peter Teodorovic of Cornell 36, 36.

On the final day of the Yale Invitational, the Bulldogs won in three of their five matches, cementing the weekend's success.

In doubles, the dynamic duo of freshmen Liao and Gupta defeated Nolan Ranger and Shrikeshav Murugesan of Penn State 63. In singles, Neal won a super tiebreaker against Penn States Ranger 61, 67, 103.

Gupta also earned his second win of the day, beating Penn State's Charl Morgan 64, 63. Lefevre and Liao both fell short against their Cornell opponents.

It was definitely a tough weekend. I had a busy week leading up to the tournament, so it was extremely tough mentally to balance studying and practicing. Gupta told the News. It turned out that the first day I was extremely slow on the field and there was no energy in general, but after talking to coach Lalo I was able to push myself the last two days and get the results I wanted.

The Bulldogs will have some time off before returning to action at the ITA New England Regional, held October 17-21 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.