Cougar Netters Fare Well at ITA Fall Regional

Florence, SC - The Columbus State tennis teams made the annual trek to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Fall Regional over the weekend and CSU came away well-represented on both the men's and women's side. The ITA uses the fall event as a ranking measure for individuals and team heading into the spring championship segment of the season.
For the men, senior Frank Suarez advanced all the way to the semifinal round before falling to AASU's Rafael Array 2-6, 6-4, 6-2. Along the way, Suarez defeated Flagler's Tim Hansson, USCA's Gregory Andrade, Lander's Henrik Willers, and Lander's Paul-Henri Arrigoni. 

Diego Motivar won his first match over Coker's Ty Medlin before retiring with an injury in his match with Lander's Willers. Filip Cojbasic defeated AASU's Jose Carlos Tolentino and then fell to teammate Nemanja Djuric in the round of 32. Djuric had defeated Georgia College's Giovane Nucci before besting Cojbasic. He then fell in the round of 16 to AASU's Paul Fitzgerald in the round of 16 by a 6-1, 6-1 margin. Newcomer Christophe Noblet won a first-round match over Lincoln Memorial's Bastian Guenther before falling to Arrigoni in the round of 32.

In men's doubles, Suarez and partner Noblet played their way into the semifinals before falling to Francis Marion's Dilshod Sharifi and Oshada Wijemanne by a close 8-6 count. The duo took wins over Andrade and Filip Garcia of USCA and Daniel Regan and Paul Fitzgerald of AASU to reach the semifinals. The CSU teams will now await ranking information as they finish conditioning work as they prepare to open the 2010 season in February.