SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. –
Tsubasa Okada and
Gustave Viennet highlighted a three-day showing for the RPI men's tennis team at the ITA Regional hosted by Skidmore, with the Engineers' top doubles pairing advancing to the semifinals and Okada earning a pair of victories in the singles draw.
Okada opened singles competition with a convincing 6-0, 6-4 victory over Sam Park of Baruch College in the round of 64. He continued his run in the round of 32, defeating Ithaca's Luis Crespo, 6-1, 6-3, before his singles tournament came to an end against Shrey Choudhary of Vassar, 6-4, 6-0.
Viennet also earned an opening-round singles victory for the Engineers, rallying after dropping the first set against Skidmore's Fletcher King. Viennet responded to take the second set 7-5 before securing the match with a 10-5 tiebreak victory. His run ended in the round of 32 following another three-set battle, as Union's Jesus Alberto prevailed 6-2, 1-6, 10-7.
Okada and Viennet then combined for RPI's deepest run of the weekend in the doubles championship draw. The duo began with an 8-6 victory over Hobart's Dylan Ortiz and Tejus Ranadive in the round of 32 before advancing to the quarterfinals with an 8-5 win against Ivan Kisic and Crespo of Ithaca.
The Engineers continued their run with an 8-4 quarterfinal victory over Hamilton's Lleyton Mendieta and Mohammed Zahaan Siddiqui, sending Okada and Viennet into the regional semifinals. Their tournament concluded there against Boren Zheng and Bryan Hui of NYU, who earned a 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 victory.
RPI also had two pairings compete in the doubles B Draw.
Debarshi Sen and
Archyut Ravindran opened with an 8-4 round-of-16 victory over Farmingdale State's Broc Brown and Myles Freelin. The duo advanced to the quarterfinals before falling 8-2 to Ignes Grusnius and Kenn Wijesekara of NYU.
Aiden Atri and
Roy Ciurinskas rounded out the Engineers' doubles entries, battling Tomas Velez and Siddharth Arubi of TCNJ in a tightly contested round-of-16 match. The RPI tandem pushed the match to a tiebreak before falling 8-7 (7-5).
