Three Singles Players and Two Doubles Pairs Advance at Northeast Regional

DRAWS

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Columbia men's tennis team advanced three singles players and two doubles tandem Saturday at the ITA Northeast Regional Championships. 

In singles action, the eighth-seeded Ashok Narayana won a pair of matches Saturday. Narayana opened the day with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Robin Lessage from Binghamton. Narayana earned a spot in the fourth round after defeating Mike Lampa from St. John's, 6-4, 6-2.

Dragos Ignat also won a pair of matches Saturday to advance to the fourth round. Cornell's Quoc-Daniel Nguyen forced Ignat to three sets, but the first-year player came away with a well-earned 6-3, 0-6, 7-6 win. Ignat's third round opponent, Nikola Kocovic from Penn proved easier to defeat, falling 6-2, 6-4 to the Columbia freshman.

Winston Lin completed the trio of Columbia players advancing to the fourth round. Lin won two straight-set matches, defeating St. John's Valentin Mihai and Buffalo's Vuso Hove. 

On the doubles side, Ignat and partner Eric Rubin downed Morth and Mladenov from St. John's, 8-1. For Narayana and Max Schnur, Dartmouth's Kipouras and Nordahl were no match as the Columbia tandem capture an 8-2 victory.

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Men�s Tennis to Play for Singles and Doubles Titles at ITA Northeast Regional

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Columbia men's tennis team will have an opportunity to capture both the singles and doubles titles at the ITA Northeast Regional Championships Tuesday.

Columbia's Winston Lin will face Princeton's Matija Pecotic in the finals after defeating St. John's Vasco Mladenov, 3-6, 7-5, 6-1. Lin and Pecotic met earlier this fall at the NTC BJK Men's Collegiate Invitational, with Pecotic winning a close three-set match.

Max Schnur and Ashok Narayana continue their impressive fall, advancing to Tuesday's doubles final. Going up against Cornell's Fleck and Nguyen, Columbia's top doubles pair came away with an 8-6 victory to earn a spot in Tuesday's final. Yale's Powers and Hoffman will be across the net from Schnur and Narayana Tuesday morning when play begins at 9 a.m.

Tuesday will mark the first time in program history that Columbia will be represented in both the singles and doubles finals at the Northeast Regional. Both matches are slated to begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

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Women's Tennis Seeks Singles and Doubles Title at ITA Northeast Regional Championship

TOURNAMENT CENTRAL

WEST POINT, N.Y. - First-year women's tennis player Kanika Vaidya will play for the ITA Northeast Regional Championship Tuesday after winning her quarterfinal and semifinal match Monday. Columbia's doubles team of Bianca Sanon and Tiana Takenaga will also play for the doubles title Tuesday.

In her quarterfinal matchup, Vaidya defeated Harvard's Hideko Tachibana, 6-2, 6-4. The win set up a showdown with teammate Bianca Sanon who had also won her quarterfinal match.

Sanon took down the second-seeded Elizabeth Epstein from Yale in three sets, 7-6(1), 4-6, 6-4. In the all-Columbia semifinal match, Vaidya was able to come out on top, 6-0, 6-3.

Vaidya will meet Princeton's Amanda Mulliawan in Tuesday's championship match. The winner of the match will earn a coveted spot at the ITA National Indoor Tournament that begins Nov. 1 in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

Mulliawan, also a freshman, entered the Northeast Regional with a 5-2 mark this fall, while Vaidya has posted an 11-2 mark in her first fall at Columbia.

In the doubles semifinals, Sanon and Takenaga downed Boston College's Olga Khmylev and Jessica Wacnik, 8-6, to earn a spot in the finals. 

This marks the first time in program history that Columbia is represented in both the singles and doubles finals of the Northeast Regional.

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