HILTON HEAD, SC — The Wittenberg men's tennis team opened the final leg of the 2011-12 season with a strong first day of its annual Spring Break trip to Hilton Head, SC, picking up wins over Methodist and Penn State-Behrend.
In a 6-3 win over Methodist, the Tigers won two of the three doubles matches and then wrapped the competition up with four wins in six singles matches. It was anything but easy, however, as four of the singles matches split sets, and the two teams each won two third-set tiebreakers.
Freshman Ian Streicker (South Lebanon, Ohio/Loveland) bounced back from a loss at No. 2 doubles to win at No. 1 singles in a tiebreaker. Freshman Alexey Topolyanskiy (Moscow, Russia) also was pushed in singles before securing the win at No. 2 by a 16-14 count in the 10-point third-set tiebreaker. Earlier Topolyanskiy had teamed with sophomore Sam Wilke (Cincinnati, Ohio/Turpin) at No. 1 doubles. Wilke went on to add a win at No. 4 singles.
Junior Sergio Fishkin (Minsk, Belarus) rounded things out with a win at No. 5 singles after teaming with freshman Sasha Topolyanskiy (Moscow, Russia) for a victory at No. 1 doubles.
The day concluded with a sweep of Penn State-Behrend. Streicker, both Topolyanskiys, Fishkin and sophomore Tyler Strong (Louisville, Ky./DuPont Manual) were all winners in both singles and doubles in the match. FreshmanDylan Sharkey (Granville, Ohio/Granville) added a win at No. 6 singles and Wilke rounded things out as one-half of the victorious No. 3 doubles pairing.
The wins moved Wittenberg to 6-2 on the season.