ITHACA, N.Y. - The Ithaca College men's tennis team played its home opener on Saturday afternoon against Vassar College. The Brewers jumped out to an early lead in the doubles matchups and were able to remain in control throughout the singles matchups to top the Bombers 9-0. This was the Bombers first conference game and first loss of the season and dropped them to 1-1 on the year.

Doubles:

1. David Gandham/Adam Krueger (V) def. Minos Stavrakas/Dean Kraft (IC) 8-6
2. Jay Wong/Benjamin Almquist (V) def. George Lomas/Nicolas Luis (IC) 8-3
3. Mihajlo Ivanovic/Arun Guruswamy (V) def. Eric Dubilirer/Jacob Wachs (IC) 8-7, 7-6 in tiebreak 9-8

Singles:

1. Minos Stavrakas vs David Gandham 3-6, 4-6
2. George Lomas vs Jay Wong 2-6,1-6
3. Nicolas Luis vs Benjamin Almquist 2-6, 6-3, 9-11
4. Artem Khaybullin vs Adam Krueger 2-6, 1-6
5. Eric Dubilirer vs Mihajlo Ivanovic 4-6, 0-6
6. Dean Kraft vs Nicolas Demaria 5-7, 6-4, 6-10

The Bombers struggled to get anything going early on as it got swept in the doubles matches. Despite a comeback attempt in its first tandem of graduate student Minos Stavrakas and first-year Deon Kraft, they took an 8-6 defeat. Senior George Lomas and first-year Nicolas Luis took a tough 8-3 defeat in the second doubles match. First-years Eric Dubilirer and Jacob Wachs provided a much-needed spark for the Bombers in their final match before singles. Despite taking the loss, the first-years pushed the Brewers into a tiebreaker in which they were defeated 7-6 and lost the match 9-8.
 
The Bombers were unable to take back any control in singles dropping all six of its matches including four in straight sets. Two games in particular were very close as both Luis and Kraft were able to send their matches to super-breakers. Luis lost his first set 2-6 but prevailed in the secon set 6-3 and sent the third match into a close 11-9 super-breaker. Kraft was the final match of the day and the last hope for the Bombers to win a match. His match was close the whole way losing his first set 5-7 before coming back to win the second set 6-4. The third set was close the whole way until Vassar's Demaria was able to pull away at the end and take the super-breaker 10-9.
 
Ithaca will look to bounce back and get back to positive on its record when it plays its next matchup at Rochester on Saturday, April 10.