BRONX, N.Y. — Wagner men's tennis competed in the Fordham Invitational this past weekend, collecting multiple victories throughout the three brackets.
Starting in the lone doubles bracket, sophomore
Nicola Bottelberghs and junior
Eddie Schmidt won four straight matches to claim the doubles bracket championship. After their opponents withdrew in the first round, the Wagner pair defeated Fordham's pair of Dhananjay Athreya and Filip Horak 7(10)-6(8) in the quarterfinals. The Seahawks then earned a spot in the championship round after taking down Drexel's Tiago Lima and Josue Guzman (6-2).
Bottelberghs and Schmidt then faced off against the No. 2 seed of the bracket, Fordham's Zachary Pellouchoud and Diego Cueto de Romana, and claimed the doubles championship 6-2. This is the second doubles title that the Seahawks have claimed in the fall season, to go along with their Flight A title at the NEC Individuals.
In the first singles bracket, Redshirt sophomore
Lukas Escher earned the No. 5 seed out of 16, which was the highest among the four Wagner participants. Escher defeated NJIT's Tom Sorin in the first round (6-1, 6-3), then earned a spot in the semifinals with a come-from-behind win against Pellouchoud (3-6, 6-3, 10-4).
During the next match, Escher forced a tiebreak game in each of the first two sets against Fordham's Victor Kimpel, the No. 1 seed. However, he couldn't find the winning point, and his tournament ended in the semifinals 6(6)-7(8), 6(6)-7(8).
Schmidt started the same bracket as the No. 7 seed, and also won his first round match against Iona's Roko Kacer in a clean sweep (6-0, 6-0). Schmidt then faced off against the no. 2 seed in the bracket, NJIT's Soma Fukuhara, and dropped the match in straight sets (2-6, 2-6), ending his tournament.
Over in the second singles bracket, junior
Joshua Zhao earned the No. 3 seed and automatically advanced to the quarterfinals of the tournament thanks to his first opponent withdrawing from the match. Zhao then won his next two matches in straight sets, first against Iona's Yusen Sato in the quarterfinals (6-1, 6-4), then against Cueto de Romana in the semifinals (6-4, 6-0) to earn a spot in the championship round.
Zhao fell short in the championship round of his bracket, dropping a hard-fought, three-set match to the No. 1 seed in the bracket, NJIT's Severin Risan (7-5, 3-6, 5-10).
The Seahawks will return to the courts on Thursday, Oct. 15, as they travel to Philadelphia to take part in the ITA Regionals.
