Oct. 20, 2005
Five Georgia Tech men’s tennis players advanced to the Round of 64 at the first day of competition at the ITA Mideast Regional being held in Chapel Hill, NC on the campus of the University of North Carolina.
First round winners for the Yellow Jackets included Jordan Delass, who defeated Ben Zink of NC State, 6-0, 7-6 (4) and will face Alex Conjanu of William and Mary in the Round of 64 Friday. In addition, Zachary Rath held on to defeat Duke’s Alex Stone, 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3 and will now face Darrin Cohen of Virginia in the Round of 64. Also winning for the Yellow Jackets was George Gvelesiani who after dropping the first set defeated Mason Schermerhorn of NC State, 6-7 (5), 7-5, 6-3 and will now take on Florida State’s Maciek Sykut Friday.
Automatically advancing into the Round of 64 with first round byes were Marko Rajevac, who will face William and Mary’s Colin O’Brien at 12 p.m. Friday and David North, who will take on Geraldo Knorr of South Carolina Friday at 11 a.m.
Scott Blackmon dropped his first match of the tournament to Damon Gooch of Elon in straight sets, 6-4, 6-0 and will now play in the consolation bracket.
In doubles action, the ninth-ranked team of Rajevac and North moved into the Round of 16 with two wins on the day. In their first match, the tandem defeated Ned Samuelson and Alex Stone of Duke, 8-3 and then later in the afternoon the top-seeded duo beat Andre Iriarte and William Noblitt from NC State, 8-3. The duo will now face ninth-seeded Cancada and Igarashi of Old Dominion Friday.
Tech’s other doubles teams were unable to advance as Delass and Gvelesiani fell in the Round of 64 to Ben Pauluhn and Andy Sobczyk from Furman in a tiebreaker, 9-8 (5) while Scott Blackmon and Rath won their first match over Ali Mandour and Karl Wishart of North Carolina, 8-6, but then lost in the Round of 32 to Jamie Cueller and Geraldo Knorr of South Carolina, 8-4.
Full tournament results will be updated throughout the day at www.tarheelblue.com while results for Georgia Tech players will be released at the completion of the day’s event.
