Fomin and Charlotte-Athanasiadis Take First Tennis Awards - AmericaEast.com
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – All 11 America East tennis squads have opened the 2012 portion of their schedules as the journey begins to the conference championship April 27-29 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.
The first Player of the Week awards of the season belong to Stony Brook’s Nikita Fomin (Moscow, Russia/Bradenton) on the men’s side and Boston University’s Leonie Charlotte-Athanasiadis (Haltern am See, Germany/Joseph Koenig Gymnasium) on the women’s side.
Fomin won in straight sets at No. 1 singles against Dartmouth, defeating Cander Centenari 6-1, 6-4. He then defeated Scott Warden from UConn in three sets, 6-1, 5-7, 11-9 at No. 1 singles in the Seawolves’ 7-0 victory. Fomin also combined with Francis Bertrand to go 2-0 at No. 1 doubles.
Charlotte-Athanasiadis dropped just three games at No. 2 singles for a 6-1, 6-2 win against UMBC’s Shalini Sahoo and only one game at No. 1 doubles with Jessi Linero in a dominating 8-1 victory. The Terriers defeated UMBC, 6-1.
Albany has begun the spring 2012 season at 3-1 with wins over St. Peter’s, Hofstra and Sacred Heart. New head coach Gordan Graham has hit the ground running with his team this spring after little dual match experience in the fall. Kirsten Scott (Calgary, Alberta/National Sport School) has started the season undefeated in four matches at No. 1 singles. Doubel partners Sara Iannone (North Vancouver, British Columbia/Seycove Secondary School) and Aubrey Brooks (Guilford, Conn./Guilford) has also begun the season undefeated with four wins at No. 3 doubles. The Great Danes play two road matches this week, on against Binghamton on Friday and then cross-town rival Siena on Saturday.
The Binghamton men’s and women’s tennis teams were both in action over the weekend. The women lost a pair of matches to Ivy League foes while VCU and #41 Maryland pinned 7-0 losses on the Bearcat men. On Friday, the Bearcat women were swept 7-0 by the undefeated Columbia lions and the following day were beaten by #43 Brown, 6-1. The lone victory came from freshman Missy Edelblum (Roslyn, N.Y./Rosyln), who recorded a 6-4, 6-2 victory from the No. 6 singles position. The Bearcat men, four-time defending America East champions, have started 2012 with a 2-4 record. Binghamton’s tough schedule continues with a weekend match against a Penn State team on the edge of the national rankings. The Bearcats enter 2012 having to replace their top three players and arguably the three best players in program history. Senior Alexandre Haggai (St. Denis, Reunion Island) now takes over at No. 1 singles. Sixth-year head coach Adam Cohen lead a Binghamton squad looking make its eighth NCAA Championship appearance in the last ten years.
Entering head coach Lesley Sheehan’s 27th season at the helm, the Boston University women’s tennis team (4-0) earned its fourth victory with a comfortable 6-1 win over UMBC this past Sunday. The Terrier swept through doubles and captured five of the six singles points.. Leonie Charlotte-Athanasiadis (Haltern am See, Germany/Joseph Koenig Gymnasium) led the way by dropping just three games at No. 2 singles for a 6-1, 6-2 win and just one game at No. 1 doubles with Jessi Linero (Key Bicayne, Fla./Gulliver Prep) in a dominating 8-1 win. Seeking their 14th straight NCAA berth and 19th consecutive league title, the Terriers will nest play at Harvard on Feb. 24. The Boston U. men (0-5) dropped two contests over the weekend, a 6-1 loss at #60 Harvard followed by a 5-2 defeat at home to UMBC. Josh Friedman went a perfect 2-0 in No. 1 singles with a 3-6, 6-3, 10-7 win over 2011 All-Ivy League First Team honoree Jonathan Pearlman and a straight set victory over UMBC’s Joe Adewumi. The Terriers will next host Bryant on Feb. 19.
Hartford graduate student Abby Lie (Houston, Texas/Cypress Falls/Texas), a transfer from the University of Texas, earned the women’s tennis team’s lone point in their opening two matches. At No. 1 singles, Liu defeated UMBC’s Kim Berghaus. Liu dropped the first set, 2-6, but came back to score a 2-6, 6-0, 10-5 victory. For the Hawk men (0-2 this spring), Aneil Bhalla (Ottawa, Ontario/Merivale) picked up a victory at No. 2 singles on the road at Boston College. Bhalla earned a hard-fought 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 win. Against UMBC, Michael Kennelly (Irvington, N.Y./Irvington) won the first set against Juan Aranzazu at No. 4 singles but Aranzazu came back to take a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 decision. The Hawks are led by first-year head coach Michael Louis and assistant Torr Terranova. The women’s squad features three newcomers, including Liu, while the men’s team has two newcomers in sophomore transfers Kennelly and Alex Holdstein (Hatsings-on-Hudson, N.Y./Hastings), who both come to Hartford from SUNY Oneonta.
The UMBC tennis teams competed against America East foes Hartford and Boston University this weekend. The men’s squad improved to 4-1 on the season with a pair of victories of the Hawks (7-0) and Terriers (5-2). UMBC has won four consecutive matches. Daniel Gray and Kamal Patel (Germantown, Md./Seneca Valley), both rookies, had outstanding weekends with each claiming four victories. Gray teamed with Joe Adewumi (Phoenix, Ari./Canyon) at No. 1 doubles and led off with a 8-3 victory as the Retrievers swept the doubles matches against Hartford. In singles action, Gray won 6-1, 7-5 at the No. 5 position. Patel picked up a 8-3 win with Gaulthier Berret (Lagny Sure Marne, France/Institute Deschamp) at No. 3 doubles. The Retrievers captured all six singles matches against the Hawks. Against the Terriers, Juan Manuel Aranzazu (Ibague, Colombia/Colegio Tolimense) shook off a tough second set and a match point in the third to capture a long match, 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (2), in a tie-breaker at No. 4 singles. Gray dropped a first-set tie-breaker, but prevailed 6-7 (4), 6-4, 10-7. Patel won the fourth and deciding point for UMBC. The women’s tennis team split its matches over the weekend, defeating Hartford, 6-1, before falling to perennial champion Boston University, by the same 6-1 count. Junior Heidi Danielsson (Jonkoping, Sweded/Sanda) ramped up her play, capturing all three of her matches this weekend. At Hartford, she teamed with Kim Berghaus (Offenbach, Germany/Liebnizgymnasium) to win 8-0 at No. 2 doubles. At No. 4 singles, she earned a 6-0, 6-0 straight-set win over the Hawks. At Boston U., Danielsson sprung the upset, defeating Petra Santini, 6-2, 6-3 at No. 5 singles. Both of the Retriever tennis teams take on Old Dominion in Norflk, Va., on Saturday.
Both Stony Brook men’s and women’s tennis teams are 2-2 on the season. Each team defeated Southern New Hampshire and Connecticut and fell to Army and Dartmouth. Junior Nini Lagvilava (Tbilisi, Georgia/Number 29) entered the spring season ranked 109th in singles by the ITA. She is the program’s first ever nationally-ranked player and the highest ranked conference player, as well. She is also ranked sixth in the ITA’s Northeast Region rankings, also the highest ever for a Stony Brook player. Lagvilava has opened the season by going 3-1 at No. 1 singles, with all three of her wins coming in straight sets. The Seawolf women opened with a defeat at #57 Dartmouth before rattling off two straight wins over SNHU and Connecticut and most recently falling to Army. For the men, Nikita Fomin (Moscow, Russia/Bradenton) is 2-0 at No. 1 singles and has combined with freshman Francis Bertrand (Repentigny, Quebec) to go 2-0 at No. 1 doubles. Bertrand also picked up a straight-set victory against Army at No. 1 singles. The Seawolves return to action at Lehigh on Feb. 24.