From Brandeis University Athletics
The Brandeis University men's tennis team opened its season over the weekend at the Middlebury College Invitational. The Judges were paced by new faces, with rookie David Aizenberg (Highland Park, Ill./Highland Park) winning the D Flight singles and reaching the doubles B Flight finals. Classmate Mitchell Ostrovsky (Brooklyn, N.Y. / Leon M Goldstein)made it to the semifinals of the C Flight singles as well.
Aizenberg entered the singles draw as the top seed in the D flight. He defeated Cole Sutton of host Middlebury in the opening round, 6-3, 6-2. He knocked of RPI's Sundar Devakottai by a similar 6-2, 6-3, score in the quarterfinals. In the semis, Aizenberg defeated Tufts' Willy Gold, who had dropped just six games in his previous two matches, 6-2, 6-4. In the finals, Aizenberg defeated another Tufts product, Jason Scanlon, 7-5, 6-3. Aizenberg is the first Brandeis player to win a draw at Middlebury since the Judges started opening their season there in 2010.
In doubles action, Aizenberg and sophomore Tyler Ng (Great Neck, N.Y./Great Neck South) reached the championship match. They cruised past Feldman and Davis of Bates in the opening round, 8-1, then defeated Sutton and Venezis of the hosts, 8-3. In the semifinals, the Judges knocked off Winser and Sossen of Trinity College, 8-3, but fell to top-seeded van der Geest and Jackson of Middlebury, 8-6, in the finals.
Also reaching the singles semifinals in his Brandeis debut was Ostrovsky. The top seed in the draw, Ostrovsky knocked off Bates' Brent Feldman, 6-2, 6-3, and Ross Kamin of Tufts, 6-3, 6-1, to reach the semis. Ostrovsky battled JT Wynne of Skidmore to a third set super-tiebreaker for a spot in the finals, but he couldn't hang on after winning the first set, 6-2, falling 6-4 in the second and 10-6 in the super tiebreaker.
Sophomore Zach Cihlar (Phoenix, Ariz. / Brophy College Prep.) put together a nice run in the D singles flight as well. He didn't drop a game in his opener with Duane Davis of Bates, 6-0, 6-0, but played two more three-set matches. In the quarterfinals, he took out second-seeded Ben Biswas of Tufts, 2-6, 7-6 (7-4), 10-5. In the semis, he jumped out against Jason Scanlon of Tufts, 6-2, but couldn't close out a second-set tiebreaker, losing 7-6 (7-5) before the Jumbo player won the super tiebreaker, 10-3.
Other match winners for the Judges were senior Ryan Bunis (Cincinnati, Ohio/Groton-Dunstable, Mass.), who won his opener in the A singles flight, 6-1, 6-3, over Josh Quijano from Bates; sophomore Jordan Brodie (Baltimore, Md. / Gilman School) in the D Flight with a 6-1, 7-5, win over Suryanesh Patel of RPI; and the team of senior Michael Arguello (Brentwood, Tenn./Brentwood) and sophomore Jackson Kogan (Pacific Palisades, Calif. / Windward School) in the A doubles flight with an 8-3 win over Kamini and Niemiec of Tufts.