Bulls Roll on Opening Day of Farnsworth/Princeton Tournament

PRINCETON, NJ – The University at Buffalo men's tennis team, the defending Mid-American Conference regular season champions, opened the 2010-11 season with strong singles performances at the first day of the Farnsworth/Princeton Tournament.

The Bulls, who have six singles players and three doubles teams entered in the flighted tournament, scored seven wins on Friday. Five of UB's six singles players won their opening matches.

In A singles, Wojciech Starakiewicz scored a straight sets win over Yale's Daniel Hoffman, 7-6 (2), 6-3. Starakiewicz will face Penn State's Bryan Weinetz in a quarterfinal match on Saturday.

In B singles, George Tibil scored a 6-2, 6-3 win over Columbia's Rajeev Deb Sen and will meet Princeton's Alex Faust on Saturday. In C singles, Marcelo Mazzetto needed three sets to down Columbia's John Yetimoglu, 6-4, 1-6, 7-5. Mazzetto, the number two seed in the C flight, faces Princeton's Ryan Kim on Saturday.

Three Bulls competed in the D flight with Vusa Hove and Alex Kalinin picking up first round victories while Mitch Zenaty lost his opening match. Hove defeated Yuri Gricheno of Fairleigh Dickinson, 6-2, 6-1 to set up a meeting with Penn's Lucas Andreika on Saturday. Kalinin and Penn State's Chris Hasyn, the number two seed in the flight, traded 7-5 sets before Kalinin took the final set, 6-4, to set up Saturday's match with Ian Laster of Columbia. Zenaty fell to Penn's Zach Gorn, 6-0, 6-1 and moved into Saturday's consolation round. He will take on the number one seed in the flight, Columbia's Sho Matsumoto, who was upset in his first round match.

UB's lone doubles team to score wins on Friday was Mazzetto and Zenaty in the B flight. The duo defeated St. John's Pavel Cerny and Matty Najfeld, 8-2 in the first round then scored another 8-2 win over Cyril and Tizian Bucher of Columbia in the quarterfinals. The pair will meet Yohei Shoji and Alex Faust of Princeton, the top seeds in the flight, in Saturday's semifinals.

Starakiewicz and Tibil were defeated in the first round of the A doubles by Columbia's Haig Schneiderman and Ian Laster, 8-5. Kalinin and Hove, UB's C doubles entry, start play on Saturday against Columbia's Alex Lee and Yetimoglu.

Two rounds of singles and one round of doubles will be played on Saturday with flight finals on Sunday.