Category Archives: Tennis

Men prepare for ITAs

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The men’s tennis team is set to begin competition in the 2013 USTA/ITA Atlantic Regional Championship on Thursday, October 17th at Virginia Tech.

Captain Kristian Marquart is the only Owl in the main singles draw. The junior received a bye in the round of 32 and will face the winner of Delaware’s Troy Beneck and Aaron Capitel from George Mason in the round 16.

In the qualifying singles draw, sophomores Santiago Canete and Nicolas Paulus earned a bye in the round of 32 and will take to the court in the round of 16. Canete face off against the winner of Penn State’s Ramy Labna vs. Daniel Gray of UMBC ‘s match. Paulus will go head to head to against either David Kohan from Penn State or Evan Ward of Morgan State.

Hicham Belkssir, Maros Januvka, Vineet Naran, Sam Rundle and Hernan Vasconez will all begin their competition in the round of 32. Belkssir will take to the court against Saint Joseph’s Dan Barrus. Januvka will play Mateo Cevallos of Longwood, while Naran will square off against Eliott Labatie from UMBC. Rundle will take on Chris Young of Penn State and Vasconez will face Richmond’s Noah Fenton in the opening round.

Four pairs of Temple Owls will represent the cherry and white in doubles action. In the opening round, Rundle and Naran will face the duo of Mehdi Mekaoui and Harry Walshe from Duquesne. Belkssir and Marquart will team up against Old Dominion’s Jonas Kuwet and Zvonimir Podvinski. The duo of Canete and Paulus will take on the tandem of Biyik Akinshemayisn and Labatie of UMBC. Januka and Vasconez will face another pair from UMBC, Kamal Patel and Kevin Hsieh.

The USTA/ITA Regional Championships has attracted some of the top men’s and women’s players in the country. Well over 8,000 student-athletes from NCAA Division I, II, III, NAIA, Junior and Community Colleges compete at one of the 87 USTA/ITA Regional Championships held across the country.

ITA competitors selected

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In less than a week, players from the tennis teams will head to Virginia to compete against some of the best collegiate athletes in the country at the United States Tennis Association/Intercollegiate Tennis Association (USTA/ITA) Atlantic Regional Championships.

All the players on Temple’s men’s team were chosen and will begin competition on Oct. 17 at Virginia Tech University. The tournament will continue through the Oct. 22.

On the women’s side, four Temple athletes were selected including seniors Yana Mavrina, Alicia Doms, Jordan Batey and freshman Anais Nussaume. The women will compete at the University of Virginia from Oct. 18 to 21.

The players were selected by an ITA committee based on their records according to coach Steve Mauro.

The USTA/ITA Regional Championship will be the tennis teams’ last tournament of the fall season.

Tennis fall season continues

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After two weeks off, the men’s tennis team will begin play at home for the first time this season, hosting  Buffalo on Friday in the Penn Invitational.

As a result of the abundance of teams and lack of space at Penn, Temple will play at least two matches of the flighted tournament at home.

Going into Friday’s play, Sophomore Hicham Belkssir will put his singles record, 6-0, to the test starting with Buffalo, while teammates and sophomores Santiago Canete and Sam Rundle tries to improve their singles record. Two tournaments into the season, and Canete has produced a solid 4-2 record. Rundle has only suffered one loss, as he holds a 4-1 record.

In doubles action, the duo of Canete and Sophomore hopes to better their 2-2 record, while teammates Rundle and junior Hernan Vasconez also seek to turn their 2-2 record around.

The Owls will begin their play at 9 a.m. Friday morning. The Owls will resume action at 2. p.m. going head to head with either the loser of Lehigh and Brown. This weekend will be the first and last time Temple will play at home in the fall.

Women’s tennis heading to St. Joe’s

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The women’s tennis team is set to compete at the Saint Joseph’s Invitational this weekend
Temple, Loyola (Maryland), Fairfield, Delaware, Saint Francis, and Lafayette along with the host school Saint Joseph’s will take to the court at the SJU Tennis Complex at the Maguire Campus (outdoors) starting on Friday. Nine women will represent the cherry and white including seniors Jordan Batey, Yana Mavrina, Alicia Doms and Carly Bohman, junior Rebecca Breland, and sophomores Minami Okajima and Jasmine Merali, as well as freshmen Anais Nussaume and Dina Karina.

Beginning on Friday, three Owls will be competing against three different women from Fairfield in the openning round of the singles bracket. At the first flight Mavrina will go head to head with Monica Yajima starting at 8:30 a.m. Also at 8:30 a.m. Okajima will take on Yajima’s teammate Allison Radde at the second flight. Merali will face Stephanie Ziegler later in the morning at the fourth flight at 11:30 a.m.

Also active at the first flight is Doms, as she will be battling Loyola’s Megan Hahn at 8:30 a.m. Breland and Nussaume will be playing at second flight. Nussaume will take on Saint Francis’ Lucy Jassco at 8:30 a.m. After a bye in the opening round, Breland will face the winner of SFU’s Alex Sachs and SJU’s Devi Jadeja at 1 p.m. While Batey and Karina will both be playing at third flight, Batey will play against Catherine Senopolous from Lafayette and Karina will go head to head with Danielle Gryckiewicz from Saint Francis, both matches will start at 10 a.m. In the opening round, Bohman will face the Hawk’s Michele Vona from the host school Saint Joseph’s at the fourth flight at 11:30 a.m.

In doubles play, Owls will have four teams in action, Batey and Karina, Okajima and Bohman, Doms and Nussaume,and lastly Mavrina and Breland. At the first flight, the pair of Mavrina and Breland will face Radde and Sharissa Ryan from Fairfield at 1:30 p.m. Also at the first flight, Doms and Nussaume, who has a bye, will face a pair from either Fairfield or Saint Joseph’s at 3 p.m in the second round.

Also in the action is the duo of Okajima and Bohman who will play against Loyola’s Alexandra Billups and Meredith Dwyer. Batey and Karina will then face Lafayette’s Tori Almeida and Lauren Tracy at 2:30 p.m.

The tournament will continue throughout the weekend.

Tennis ready to compete

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Six players from the men’s tennis team will be competing at
Princeton/Farnsworth Invitational this weekend, playing at the Lenz Tennis
Center starting on Friday and continuing until Sunday.

Temple will be among 14 universities that will be competing at the host
school in six singles flights and two doubles flight; Binghamton, Bucknell,
Buffalo, Columbia, Cornell, Fairleigh Dickinson (FDU), Georgetown,
Monmouth, Penn, St. John’s, Yale, New York Institute of Technology (NYIT),
and host team, Princeton. Singles matches will begin in the round of 16,
while doubles draw will start in the round of 32.

Doubles action will get underway with Kristian Marquart and Hernan Vasconez
pairing up against FDU’s Arnaud Valentin and Arvis Berzins in the Orange
round of 32 at 8:30 a.m. on Friday. The pair of Hicham Belkssir and Sam
Rundle will also be squaring off against Buffalo’s Sergio Arevallilia and
Jonathan Hannestad at 8:30 a.m. in the opening round of the Black flight.
Santiago Canete and Nicolas Paulus received a bye and will wait for
their match against either Buffalo or Bucknell at 9:45 a.m.

Both Marquart and Paulus will begin to compete in the Pagoda singles flight
at 10:45 a.m. Marquart will face Penn’s Jemery Court, while Paulus will
take on Jonathan Carcone of the host team.

In the Cordish singles flight, Vasconez received a bye in the round of 16
and will later play either FDU or St. John’s Vaisk Munshaw at 1:30 p.m.
Rundle will face Monmouth’s Brant Switzler in the opening round of the
Jadwin flight at 12:30 p.m. and Belkssir will take on James Ratchfold of
Yale at 1 p.m. in the Jersey flight round of 16.

If weather permits, the matches will be played outdoors. However, in
any event of rain the matches will be moved at the Jadwin Gymnasium.

This will be the 45th year Princeton will be hosting this tournament,
now named in honor of the life of the accomplished Princeton alumnus,
Ted Farnsworth.

Men’s team opens season this weekend

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The men’s tennis team will head south to Annapolis, Md. this weekend to open up its fall season at the Navy Invitational.

University of Delaware, St. Bonaventure and Navy are the teams the young Temple quad will be competing against in the three day tournament.

The first opponent Temple will be playing is St. Bonaventure on Friday at 11 a.m. On Saturday, Temple will face Delaware at 2 p.m and on Sunday, Temple will close out the tournament against Navy at 2 p.m, who will be Temple’s toughest opponent with a record of 17-12 last season.

According to coach Steve Mauro, all eight players will be playing both singles and doubles matches over the course of the tournament.

The team will be leaving early Friday morning.

Tennis athletes earn honors

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Temple’s men and women tennis players were recognized by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association for their academic excellence.

The men’s team received the status of ITA All-Academic Team. Also, five men’s players, Maros Januvka, Kristian Marquart, Kacper Rams, Sam Rundle and Hernan Vasconez were named 2013 Division I Men’s Scholar-Athletes.

Likewise, three women’s players, Carly Bohman, Alicia Doms and Jasmine Merali were named 2013 Division I Women’s Scholar-Athletes.

To receive ITA Scholar-Athlete status, a player must be a varsity letterwinner with a grade point average of at least 3.50 for the current academic year and is enrolled in the present year for at least two semesters.

Maquart, a junior from Germany, maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average throughout the school year.

While Bohman, a senior from Ontario, finished the school year with a 3.98 grade point average, which included a 4.0 during the fall semester.

To earn the ITA All-Academic Team award, the players must have a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.20. The men’s team had a 3.59 for the 2012-2013 academic year.

As the fall season is fast approaching, the men will begin their practices on Sept. 4th and the women will begin on Sept. 11th.

A look at men’s tennis schedule

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The official 2013-2014 schedule has not been released yet, but the men’s tennis team now knows which non-conference opponents they will go head-to-head with during the season.

In six weeks, the Owls will travel 130 miles south to Annapolis, Md. to begin their preseason campaign with a couple of tournaments, starting with the Navy Blue Invitational on Sept. 6th through the 8th against Navy. Temple will then face in-town rival Penn in the UPenn Invitational on Sept 27th through the 29th. In October, the Owls will play in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Regional Championship, which will help gauge the Owl’s preparation for the upcoming season.

The preseason will then culminate with the VCU 4+ 1 Invitational in January. The regular season will get under way on January 31st back in Maryland against UMBC in Baltimore. The Owls will have a string of home games in February by first welcoming Drexel to Legacy, the Owls’ indoor facility. If last year is any indication, UPenn will be the Owl’s toughest non-conference competition this season, having previously posted a 20-5 record.

Although the full schedule has not yet been released, the Owls will face American Athletic Conference opponents Rutgers, University of Central Florida, Cincinnati, University of Houston, Louisville, UCONN, University of Memphis, University of South Florida, and Southern Methodist
University.

Tennis athletes honored by Inquirer

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Two student athletes from the men’s tennis team were selected to be a part of the 2013 Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Men’s Tennis Team.

Kacper Rams, who recently graduated this past spring, was recognized for his excellence in the classroom for the third year in a row. Additionally, sophomore Kristian Marquart was recognized for the first time for his academic performance.

The Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Men’s Tennis selection is based upon athletes who are enrolled in at least their second year at the institution that have a cumulative grade point average of 3.20 or higher.

Rams, a native from Poland, graduated with a 3.79 GPA and a bachelor’s degree in finance. Rams also earned many prestigious honors, including being named a member of Temple’s Trustee Ten, an honor given to the top ten student athletes with the highest GPA. Rams was also named to the Atlantic 10 all-conference and all-academic team twice. Unfortunately, Rams spent majority of his final season injured.

Marquart, a native of Germany, holds a 3.97 GPA and is majoring in international business. Marquart played both singles and doubles. In singles flight, he garnered a 9-17 record during tournament play, in which players play against each other for rankings. Marquart won seven of his final nine decisions. In doubles competition, Marquart had a 9-8 record, which included a 7-4 record with his partner, freshman Sam Rundle.

The Academic All-Area Men’s Tennis team was voted on by the sports information offices of the 28 area institutions from the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Women’s tennis ninth in A-10

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The women’s tennis team drew the ninth seed in the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament this weekend in Charlottesville, Va. They will play the eighth-seeded Saint Louis Billikens on Thursday, April 18 at 3 p.m.

The Owls finished the regular season with a 9-13 record (3-6 A-10). They have won four of their past five matches.

Three Owls ended the regular season with winning singles records. Sophomore Rebecca Breland leads the way with a 14-6 record in the spring. Junior Jordan Batey is 12-6, and junior Alicia Doms is 12-8. Doms is the likely top flight player, while Breland, Batey, and junior Yana Mavrina (8-12 this spring) will fill flights two through four in some order.

Three players will compete for the final two flights: Junior Carly Bohman (2-8), sophomore Ama Osei (4-11), and freshman Minami Okajima (9-9). Okajima and Bohman have been getting the fifth and sixth flight spots, respectively, in recent matches.

In doubles, Temple’s top two teams are Breland and Mavrina (11-5), and Batey and Doms (9-7). Okajima will team up with either Osei or Bohman for the third team. Okajima and Osei are 1-4, while Okajima and Bohman are 1-5.

The Billikens (12-7, 2-1 A-10) are led by junior Stephanie Hollis. Hollis is 12-5 in singles this spring, all in the top flight. Every player that Saint Louis has sports a winning singles record.

Temple and Saint Louis last played at the 2011 A-10 Championships, when Saint Louis won 4-3. Doms and Hollis, likely opponents in the top flight, faced each other in the fourth flight. Hollis won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.

The winner of this match will face the winner of top-seeded Virginia Commonwealth and #16 La Salle on Friday at 10:00 a.m