September 9, 2005

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The Virginia Tech men's tennis team saw mixed results on the first day of the Crowne Plaza Invitational in Houston, Tex. The event is being hosted by Rice University and played at Jake Hess Stadium. The three-day tournament, featuring players from LSU, South Florida, Prairie View A&M and the host Owls, concludes with Sunday finals in all brackets.

In Flight A singles, Arvid Puranen (Jr., Lulea, Sweden), ranked No. 102 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) preseason national rankings, defeated Dan Bryan (LSU) 6-0, 7-5, to advance to Saturday's 11 am. semifinal. Albert Larregola (So., Lleida, Spain) lost to Dirk Britzen (South Florida) 6-2, 6-2, and will play at 1 p.m. in the consolation. Two Tech freshmen saw their first collegiate action in Flight B as David Rosenfeld (Coral Gables, Fla.) outlasted Marc Jaeger (South Florida) 4-6, 6-2, 7-5, but Nicolas Delgado (Madrid, Spain) dropped a 6-2, 6-2 decision versus Ralph Knupfer (Rice). Rosenfeld will play his main draw semifinal at 1 p.m. Saturday while Delgado will play his consolation match at 11 a.m.

Christian Guevara (Fr., Parkland, Fla.) won his collegiate debut, 6-3, 6-1, in Flight C against Mark Gattika (South Florida), however Brent Wilkins (Sr., Richmond, Va.) lost to Hooney Shin (Rice) 6-2, 7-6 in another Flight C contest. Guevara advances to a 1 p.m. semifinal while Wilkins will play at 11 a.m. in the consolation round. In Flight D, Akil Burgess (Jr., St. Michael, Barbados) lost a tough 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 match to Martel Campbell (LSU) and Ignaci Roca (So., San Jose, Costa Rica) fell 6-3, 6-4 versus Jon Greenberg (Rice). Burgess will play in the consolation round at 1 p.m. while Roca will see action at 11 a.m.

The tournament opened with morning doubles action as Tech's duo of Delgado/Puranen nipped Barragan/Jaeger (South Florida) 8-6, while Guevara/Rosenfeld lost 8-3 to Knupfer/Zivojinovic (Rice) in Flight A. In Flight B, Larregola/Wilkins defeated Greenberg/Morita (Rice) 8-5, but Burgess/Roca fell 8-6 against Brozyna/Gattika (South Florida). All doubles matches, in both the main draw and consolation rounds, will take place Saturday at 9 a.m.