Feb. 24, 2006 QUEENS, N.Y. - St. John's men's tennis (2-1, BIG EAST 1-0) is looking for three more wins on the road this weekend. First, the Red Storm will travel to New Jersey to take on the Tigers of Princeton (Feb. 24) before heading back to New York to face local rival the Lions of No. 75 Columbia (Feb. 25). St. John's ends its weekend in Philadelphia to play No. 47 Pennsylvania (Feb. 26). First serve is set for 3 p.m., 4 p.m., and noon, respectively.
St. John's enters the weekend with a 2-1 overall mark and 1-0 in the BIG EAST Conference. Leading the Red Storm this season is junior Louis Desmarteaux (Thornhill, Canada), who is undefeated (7-0) at the No. 1 singles spot. Desmarteaux also took first place earlier in the season at the Columbia Classic and was awarded the Classic's Sportsmanship Award. Senior David Nylen (Orebro, Sweden) and freshman Aliaksandr Svetlakov (Minsk, Belarus) are also posting winning seasons so far. Nylen is 4-1 (.800) at the No. 2 singles spot, while Svetlakov is 5-2 (.714) at the No. 4 position. In doubles play, Desmarteaux and Svetlakov are 3-3 on the season at the No. 1 spot, while Nylen and junior-transfer Tom Green (Norwich, England) are 3-2 at the No. 2 position. In its last outing, the Red Storm fell to the Jaspers of Manhattan, 4-3, in a hard fought battle. Peter Czink won the deciding singles match for the Jaspers at the No. 4 spot, winning two tiebreakers over Svetlakov (7-6(11), 7-6(5)). Desmarteaux defeated Bogdan Borta (6-1, 6-2) at the No. 1 position, while at the No. 2 spot Nylen stormed past Diego Alvarado (6-1, 6-4). In doubles play, Halim and Bauer picked up the Red Storm's only win over Diego and David Alvarado (8-6).
Princeton enters the weekend with an 0-4 mark and is looking for its first win of the season. The Tigers return plenty of experience, 10 letterwinners, and welcome a talented freshmen class of four to the 2006 squad. In Princeton's last outing, Santa Clara pulled away with a 6-1 win at the Degheri Tennis Center in Santa Clara, Calif. The Tigers picked up the doubles point with efforts from Alex Krueger-Wyman and Ted Mabrey at the No. 2 spot (8-6) and Darius Craton and Shannon Morales at the No. 3 doubles position (8-4). Last spring, Princeton was victorious over the Red Storm, 5-2. No. 2 doubles pair Desmarteaux and Nick Stocker picked up an 8-6 victory over Craton and Mabrey, while Nylen grabbed a three set win over Hans Plukas (6-4, 3-6, 6-1). Stocker was also victorious at the No. 4 singles spot. He fought to a three set win over Morales (4-6, 6-3, 6-4).
The Lions of Columbia enter the weekend undefeated at 4-0 on the season. In their last outing, the Lions topped local rival Manhattan 6-1 at the Richard Savitt Tennis Center in New York. Three of the singles matches were extended to three sets, with Mark Clemente and Marty Moore capturing two of them. Clemente beat Bogdan Borta at No. 1 singles, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, and Moore defeated Diego Alvarado at No. 3 singles, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. At the Columbia Classic in January, St. John's Desmarteaux defeated Paul Ratchford of Columbia 6-2, 6-0 in the Flight A Singles final. Desmarteaux and doubles partner Svetlakov were also victorious over two of three Lions pairs in the doubles bracket, falling to Marty and Jimmy Moore in the semifinals (9-8). Last spring, the Lions finished with a 16-3 overall mark and ended the Ivy League season in second place with a 6-1 record. On Feb. 26, 2005, the Lions swept the Red Storm 4-0 taking several of the individual matches by default.
Penn enters the 2006 spring season after posting a 14-8 overall record last spring, and finishing sixth in the Ivy League. The Quakers return five of their letterwinners from the 2005 squad and in October, the Quakers won the ECAC Championship. They upset No. 1 seeded Penn State in the semifinal and No. 2 seeded Brown in the final. In the weekly rankings issued by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) on Wednesday, sophomore Pinsky was entered at No. 65. Currently, Penn is 3-3 on the season. In their last outing the Quakers fell to No. 1 Florida at the first round of the National Indoor championships. Florida came away with the 4-1 victory. Penn took the early lead winning the doubles point. Penn's Justin Fox and Brandon O'Gara defeated Nester Briceno and Stefan Tell 8-6. After Jason Pinksy and Joseph Lok dropped their match at the No. 1 position, Jonathan Boym and Mikhail Bekker edged Janne Holmia and Greg Ouellette 8-5 to go up 1-0. Last spring, the Red Storm fell to the Quakers, 5-2, in Philadelphia. St. John's picked up wins at the No. 1 and No. 2 singles spots with strong performances from Desmarteaux and Nylen. At No. 1, Desmarteaux downed Mikhail Bekker (-1, 6-7, 10-5), while Nylen knocked out Tas Tobias 6-4, 6-2.
The Red Storm returns to action on Friday, March 3 when it hosts the Bearcats of Binghamton at Cunningham Park in Queens, N.Y. First serve is set for 8 p.m. For the most up-to-date information and statistics on St. John's Athletics, please visit www.RedStormSports.com, or call our hotline at 1-888-GO-STORM.
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