POCATELLO, Idaho – The Idaho State men's tennis team opened played their first three home matches of the season this weekend. The first versus Utah State on Friday, February 2
nd and the last two against Colorado Mesa and Whitman College on Saturday, February 3
rd.
Idaho State's opening week of play was highlighted by their 7-0 sweep over Colorado Mesa and Whitman College in Saturday's doubleheader.
Beginning in the doubles matches in Bengals' match vs Utah State, the first duo for ISU, playing in the #3 doubles spot, was
Ege Cankus and
Hiroki Fujita. The Bengal tandem would fall 3-6 to Utah State's Alkotop/Martirosian. The second Bengals grouping in doubles was
Patrick Kristensen and
Andreas Kramer, who could not get it done, barely falling to Vedouelli/Zarkovic in the #2 doubles match, giving USU the doubles team point.
Heading into singles play down 0-1 ISU knew they needed to step up if they wanted to win. In the #1 singles match,
Victor Sklenka fell to B. Zarkovic in straight sets 3-6, 2-6, and in the #2 singles match
Andreas Kramer would face the same fate, falling 4-6, 4-6 to S. Paardekooper. In the #3 and #4 singles matches
Valentino De Pellegrin and
Patrick Kristensen looked to turn the ship around, but both players were unable to do so, as each of them fell in three sets to their Aggie opponents, thus having Utah State clinch the team win in the match. With just the #5 and #6 singles matches remaining
Wikus Robbertse and
Hiroki Fujita. Robbertse in the #6 singles match came through, handling S. Vedouelli in straight sets 6-1, 6-0, and in the #5 singles match Fujita would follow his teammate
Wikus Robbertse with a win of his own over USU's M. Alkotop 7-5, 6-1. Utah State would defeat the Bengals 5-2.
The Bengals' match vs Colorado Mesa on Saturday morning was the first match of a doubleheader with CMU and Whitman College.
In the doubles matches vs the Mavericks the first match to finish was the #1 doubles match where
Patrick Kristensen and Andreas Karmer downed the CMU duo of Leschig/Scheck 6-1. The second match to wrap up was the #3 doubles where
JW Altman and
Wikus Robbertse would defeat the Maverick pairing of Manzano/Abreu 6-3. With the doubles point locked up for Idaho State we still had one more doubles match to finish. In the #2 doubles we saw
Ege Cankus and
Hiroki Fujita defeat Jabin/Hultman 6-3, for the Bengals to sweep the doubles matches and take a 1-0 lead into singles play.
In singles play versus Colorado Mesa, Idaho State would look to capitalize on their momentum from the doubles point victory, and the Bengals would do just that. We saw 5 of the 6 singles matches end in a straight set victory, for ISU, with
Andreas Kramer,
Valentino De Pellegrin,
Hiroki Fujita,
Ege Cankus, and
JW Altman all win in convincing fashion. In the #1 singles match
Victor Sklenka would complete the sweep for the Bengals, as he downed P. Jabin 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. After the final singles match concluded the Bengals would walk away with the 7-0 win over Colorado Mesa University.
In their second match of the day the Bengals would take on Whitman College. Idaho State would go to work early in this match, sweeping the doubles matches to earn the team doubles point after
Valentino De Pellegrin and
Victor Sklenka would down Yang/Huang in the #1 doubles match 6-3,
Wikus Robbertse and
JW Altman would take care of Raffo/Wurzer 6-2, and
Ege Cankus and
Hiroki Fujita would handle the Whitman tandem of Thomas/Baker 6-1, to lock down the doubles point for ISU.
In the singles matches Idaho State would continue to flex their muscles, with each match ending in a sweep. In the #1 singles position
Victor Sklenka defeated C. Yang 6-1, 6-2, in the #2 singles match
Andreas Kramer won easily against L. Huang 6-1, 6-1, and in the #3 singles spot
Patrick Kristensen cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 win over B. Thomas. In the #4 singles match
Wikus Robbertse defeated A. Raffo 6-0, 6-1, in the #5 singles match
Ege Cankus earned the 6-0, 6-1 win over J. Wurzer, and in the final singles match
JW Altman defeated G. Woller 6-2, 7-6 (7-1).
"The guys showed great energy and competed well all weekend." Head Coach Oliver Good stated. "It is always nice to play matches at home and I'd like to thank all of the local tennis community who came out to support us. We have a big weekend coming up now in Colorado so we will rest up now, then look forward to getting better again next weekend."
The Bengals' next matches will be on the road as they travel to Colorado to take on the University of Denver on Thursday, February 8
th, Air Force on February 9
th, and the University of North Dakota in a neutral site match at Air Force on February 10
th.
