Two Doubles Teams Advance to Round of 16 in ITA Mideast Regionals

Thursday, October 20

Durham & Chapel Hill, N.C.

All Day

Duke University

Day Two

Two Doubles Teams Advance to Round of 16 in ITA Mideast Regionals

10/20/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis

By: Duke Sports Information

Durham, N.C. - Duke had two doubles teams win a pair of matches on Thursday to advance to the round of 16 in the 2005 Wilson ITA Mideast Regionals.

Joey Atas and Jonathan Stokke entered the tournament as the second seed and cruised to a victory in their first match of the day with an 8-1 win over Dominic Pagon and Kavi Sud of William & Mary. They moved on to face Felix Insaurralde and Lisandro Picardo of East Tennessee State. Atas and Stokke won their second match of the day, 8-3, to advance. They will play again on Friday at Chapel Hill, N.C.

“Joey served the ball well,” said Stokke. “I thought we moved well and had good returns. We were also relaxed. A lot of teams are nervous in the early rounds but I thought we were pretty loose coming out.”

Ludovic Walter and Peter Rodrigues were the third seed in the tournament. They won their first match, 8-2, against Longwood's Gunnell and Rashko Patnikov. In their second match of the day, they took on Jay Weinekar and Ben Zink of N.C. State. After falling behind 3-0, Walter and Rodrigues stormed back to tie the match at 5-5 and went on to win 8-6 to move forward in the tournament.

“We started to make our returns after falling behind early,” said Walter. “Peter was returning well down the line and we served better as the match went on.”

The other doubles team in action for Duke was Ned Samuelson and Alex Stone. They lost 8-2 against the top seed in the tournament, Georgia Tech's David North and Marko Rajevac.

In singles action, the Blue Devils had four individuals compete in the first round of the main draw while four others received byes in the first round. Christopher Brown lost in his first match 6-2, 6-3 to N.C. State's Val Banada. Samuelson fell to Corey Parr of Wake Forest in straight sets 6-2, 6-2. Stone suffered a tough loss in three sets to Zachary Rath of Georgia Tech 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3. Stefan Rozycki, who won two matches on Wednesday in the qualifying round to advance to the main draw, lost his first match on Thursday in three sets. He fell to Juan Crosa of East Tennessee State 5-7, 6-1, 6-1.

The four Duke players who received byes in the first round are all seeded for the tournament. Walter is the top seed and has won the Regional Championship each of the last two seasons. He will begin singles play on Friday at 8:30 a.m. when he faces Will Shaw of N.C. State. Shaw advanced with a 6-2, 6-1 win in the first round. Atas received the third seed for the Mideast Regionals. He is scheduled to face Clemson's Ryan Young at noon on Friday. Young moved forward with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Adam Adler of South Carolina in the first round. Rodrigues is the ninth seed. He will square off against Rodrigo Santos of Winthrop at 10 a.m. on Friday. Santos knocked off Henrique Meloni of UNC-Wilmington in three sets 6-2, 3-6, 6-0 to advance. Stokke is the fifth seed and will play his first singles match of the tournament at 12:30 p.m. on Friday. His opponent will be David Rozek of N.C. State who defeated Richmond's Matt Stillwagon 6-1, 6-2 in the opening round.

The tournament is taking place at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. and the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center in Durham, N.C. The championship rounds will take place on Sunday.