Men's Tennis Heads to Princeton for ITA Northeast Regional Championships

Setting the Scene
What: ITA Northeast Regional Championships
Dates: Thursday-Tuesday, Oct. 16-21
Where: Princeton, N.J.

DRAWS/RESULTS

Bucknell at a Glance
• Six Bison will be in action this week at the ITA Northeast Regional Championship, hosted by Princeton. The tournament gets underway with singles qualifying rounds on Thursday and continues through next Tuesday.
• The ITA Regionals serve as a qualifier to the NCAA Individual Championships. The two singles finalists and the doubles champions from each of the 13 regions will earn NCAA bids. The NCAA Individual Championships will be held in Lake Nona, Fla., Nov. 18-23.
• Bucknell's top two player – No. 43 Amar Tahirovic and Adam Stavrakas – have earned byes into the main singles draw this week. Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega, Liam Kilmer, Brendan McDonald, and Will Robinson will all start out in the qualifying round on Thursday. Here are their first-round matchups:
                • Kilmer vs. Kyle Chesman (Penn State) – 10 a.m.
                • Robinson vs. David Lindsay (Penn State) – 11:30 a.m.
                • Bain vs. Promov Nemani (Temple) – 11:30 a.m.
                • McDonald vs. Lukas Cabue (Mercyhurst) – 11:30 a.m.
• Doubles play starts on Friday with the main draw Round of 64. Bucknell will have all three doubles teams in action:
                • Bain/Stavrakas vs. Kush Anand/William Monahan (Villanova) – 9:45 a.m.
                • Tahirovic/McDonald vs. Tom Sorin/Severin Risan (NJIT) – 10:30 a.m.
                • Kilmer/Robinson vs. Tobey Lock/Euan Mackenzie (Delaware) – 11:15 a.m.
• The Bison had eight players in action at the Richmond's River City Open two weeks ago, and the squad combined for a 12-10 record in singles and 5-7 in doubles against good competition.
• Tahirovic and Stavrakas both went 3-0 in singles at Richmond, while Kilmer and McDonald went 2-1. Tahirovic and McDonald led the way in doubles, winning two of their three matches.
• Tahirovic and Stavrakas both competed at the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, Okla. Tahirovic earned a bye into the main draw and dropped two hard-fought matches to opponents from TCU and Baylor, the latter in three sets. Stavrakas started in the pre-qualifying round and fell to opponents from Florida and Wake Forest. The Bison tandem were the only two Patriot League players in the field.
• Bucknell returns virtually its entire roster from last year's Patriot League championship team. The list of returnees is headlined by Tahirovic, the 2025 Patriot League Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and Stavrakas, the Patriot League Tournament MVP and First Team All-PL honoree. Those two, along with Bain and McDonald, comprise one of the most accomplished senior classes in program history. That quartet has combined for 248 singles wins and 249 doubles wins over the last three years.
• Tahirovic is No. 43 in the ITA men's singles rankings. He now has 86 career singles wins, second-most in team history behind Nick Bybel's 112. Stavrakas ranks eighth with 65 wins, and Bain is 16th with 54.
• Last year's championship was Bucknell's first since claiming the 1991 Patriot League title. That was the league's inaugural season, and the men's tennis championship was decided by an individually flighted tournament. The 2025 crown was the team's first in the Patriot League's team-format era, and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament was the first in team history.

A Look Ahead
• Next up for the Bison is the Patriot League qualifier for the ITA Conference Masters at Lehigh Oct. 24-26.

Men's Tennis Heads to Princeton for ITA Northeast Regional Championships

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Players Mentioned

Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega

Liam Kilmer

Brendan McDonald

Will Robinson

Adam Stavrakas

Amar Tahirovic