Men's Tennis Sends Four to Carnegie Mellon Invitational

Setting the Scene
What: Carnegie Mellon Invitational
Teams: Bucknell, Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, Edinboro
Dates: Friday-Sunday, Sept. 20-22 (start times: 2 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. Sunday
Where: CMU Tennis Courts, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Bucknell at a Glance
• One week after a successful season-opening performance at the Bucknell Invitational, the Bison will be sending four players to the Carnegie Mellon Invitational this weekend. Junior Brendan McDonald will be joined by freshmen Shiv Singh, Felix Steindl, and Nelson Alapi in Pittsburgh.
• The Bison dominated Lafayette, Mount St. Mary's, Saint Francis, and Millersville last weekend, going a perfect 27-0 in singles and 8-4 in doubles.
• Amar Tahirovic, Adam Stavrakas, Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega, McDonald, Liam Kilmer, Oumar Diallo, Steindl, Alapi, and Singh all went 3-0 in singles, dropping only two sets along the way.
• Stavrakas/Alapi (3-0) and McDonald/Steindl (2-0) also went unbeaten in doubles last week.
• Third-year head coach Jason Cohen has an experienced, albeit still youthful roster this season. The 10-man squad features no seniors, but five of the six regular singles players from last season are back, in addition to a promising four-player freshman class.
• Bucknell's lone graduation loss was Tim Zelikovsky, who went 29-3 in singles and 17-11 in doubles last season. Zelikovsky was a stalwart at the bottom of the lineup, playing primarily in the 5 and 6 positions.
• The Bison junior class is loaded, led by returning No. 1 Tahirovic, who went 27-6 in singles and 27-9 in doubles on the way to First Team All-Patriot League honors last year. No. 2 Stavrakas (22-10 singles, 20-16 doubles), No. 3 Bain (24-10 singles, 25-13 doubles), and No. 5 McDonald (11-16 singles, 21-13 doubles) round out the junior class, while No. 4 Kilmer (23-7 singles, 22-10 doubles) is also back after an impressive freshman campaign. Sophomore Will Robinson (10-2 singles, 8-7 doubles) was outstanding in a fill-in role last season as well. Robinson was limited to one doubles match last week after sustaining an injury.
• New to the squad this season are freshmen Nelson Alapi (San Diego, Calif.), Oumar Diallo (Miramar, Fla.), Shiv Singh (Bethesda, Md.), and Felix Steindl (Vienna, Austria).
• Bucknell is coming off an outstanding spring campaign. The Bison went 16-7 in dual matches, producing the second-most wins in a season in team history, including a 4-2 mark in Patriot League play. Bucknell dropped a tight 4-2 decision to Navy in the Patriot League Tournament semifinals, marking the second straight year that the team fell a few points short of a berth in the final.

A Look Ahead
• This is the second of seven fall tournaments on the Bison schedule. The Bison will send a group to the Rick McClure Invitational, hosted by Loyola in Baltimore next weekend.
• The Bison will then attend an event at Richmond in advance of two ITA tournaments in October. Bucknell is playing in the ITA Northeast Regional this fall after several seasons in the Atlantic Region. This year's Northeast Regional will be in Philadelphia Oct. 17-20. New to the tournament lineup this year is a Patriot League ITA qualifier, which will be held at West Point Oct. 25-27.

Men's Tennis Sends Four to Carnegie Mellon Invitational

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Players Mentioned

Nelson Alapi

Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega

Liam Kilmer

Brendan McDonald

Will Robinson

Shiv Singh

Adam Stavrakas

Felix Steindl

Amar Tahirovic

Tim Zelikovsky