History Made on Day 2 of Men’s ITA’s; Kortikere/Hardy Advance to Semis

SAN ANTONIO, Tex. - Men's Tennis turned heads today in several events, as Austin College returns for Day 3 of the ITA Division III Southwest Regional Championships.

Pieter Jon Cabato advanced to the A-consolation singles semi-finals with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over UT-Dallas's Ryan Morton, and a dominant victory over Michael Boyd of Hardin-Simmons University in the quarter's, 6-2, 6-0.

Andres Padilla remains undefeated on the weekend, compiling a 6-1, 6-1 win over A.J. Garcia of Southwestern and a 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory over Cameron La Rue of Concordia (TX) in singles, then pairing with Travis Fortune in doubles for an 8-1 Round of 16 win over LeTourneau, and a huge 8-4 upset of #1-seeded Rudolph & Mayer of Trinity in the quarterfinals.

Safe Rahman advanced to the C-Singles finals with two victories and a walkover/default today.  Rahman finished his first match unblemished with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over LeTourneau, and an epic three-set win over Tyler Howard of ETBU 6-3, 6-7 (4), 1-0 (5) in the quarterfinals.  His opponent from McMurry defaulted his semifinal match, and will face either Concordia or UT-Tyler in the finals tomorrow morning.

Josh Granberry fought through a tough 6-4, 6-3 win over Chen from UT-Dallas, before falling 7-5, 6-1 to Giovanni Zamboni of UT-Dallas in the quarterfinals of A-consolation.  Meanwhile, Preston Spivey upset the #2-seeded Ricky Mayer of Trinity University in B-Singles 2-6, 6-4, 1-0 (4), but fell to Luis Cabreja of Schreiner 6-4, 4-6, 1-0 (12-10) in the quarterfinals.

With three singles semi-finalists in A consolation, B, and C main singles, it would be hard for the Kangaroos to top such a successful effort in the first portion of the day.  But they did.

Spivey & Rahman defeated Concordia's Compton & Austin 8-6 before falling in a late comeback effort to Hardin-Simmons's Eurek & Fields 8-6 in the B-doubles quarterfinals.  Fortune & Padilla picked up their two wins for the Kangaroos to advance to the B-Doubles semi's, but history was made for Austin College in A-doubles.

4th-seeded Kenneth Hardy & Siddharth Kortikere received a default to the quarterfinals of A-doubles, and consolidated their seeding assignment, defeated 6th-seeded Hardin-Simmon University's Alex Hunt & Griffin Weinkam 9-7 to advance to the semi-finals.  In doing so, the duo compiles the most victories in A-doubles in Division III Austin College history.  Their semi-final match will be livestreamed via new.trinity.edu/live at 3:00pm Central.  And of course, all livetweets of the event can be found on Twitter at the handle @acroosmwtennis.

Play begins with A-consolation singles and B semi finals at 8:00am.

Results

A Singles

CR16 Granberry (AC) def. Chen (UTD) 6-4, 6-3

CR16 Cabato (AC) def. Morton (UTD) 6-3, 7-5

CQF Cabato (AC) def. M. Boyd (HSU) 6-2, 6-0

CQF Zamboni (UTD) def. Granberry (AC) 7-5, 6-1

B Singles

R16 #3 Padilla (AC) def. Garcia (SW) 6-1, 6-1

R16 Spivey (AC) def. #2 Mayer (TU) 2-6, 6-4, 1-0 (4)

R16 Compton (CTX) def. Fortune (AC) 6-2, 6-1

QF #3 Padilla (AC) def. La Rue (CTX) 7-6 (4), 6-3

QF Cabreja (SCH) def. Spivey (AC) 6-4, 4-6, 1-0 (10)

C Singles

R16 Rahman (AC) def. Wall (LeT) 6-0, 6-0

QF Rahman (AC) def. Howard (ETBU) 6-3, 6-7 (4), 1-0 (5)

A Doubles

R16 #4 Kortikere/Hardy (AC) def. Hamilton/Wiik (TU) default

R16 #3 Fagundes/Gomez (UTT) def. Meendsen/Robe (AC) 8-1

QF #4 Kortikere/Hardy (AC) def. #6 Hunt/Weinkam (HSU) 9-7

B Doubles

R16 #8 Padilla/Fortune (AC) def. Patterson/Best (LeT) 8-1

R16 Spivey/Rahman (AC) def. Compton/Austin (CTX) 8-6

QF #8 Padilla/Fortune (AC) def. #1 Rudolph/Mayer (TU) 8-4

QF Eurek/Fields (HSU) def. Spivey/Rahman (AC) 8-6