Saari paces Bishop men's tennis at ITA Regional Tournament

Atlanta, GA - Sophomore Antti Saari advanced to the second round of singles play and the quarterfinals of doubles play to pace his North Carolina Wesleyan tennis team this past weekend at the ITA Regional Tournament in Atlanta, GA. Saari (pictured), the tourney's 7th seed, defeated Oglethorpe's Ross Beall by default before falling to host Emory's Phillip Overdiek 6-2, 6-1.  He then teamed with Alexey Rumyantsev to earn two wins in doubles play before being eliminated by Emory's Mark Boren and David Caplan. He completes the fall season with a 2-2 singles mark and 4-2 doubles record.

Other Bishops competing in "A" flight singles were Evgeniy Bukatin, Anton Filinov, and Rumyantsev.  Unfortunately, all three lost in straight sets.

Competing in "B" flight singles was freshman Dominic Forsdike.  Forsdike earned a 6-3, 6-1 win over Eli Gay of the University of the South before falling to Richard Pearlman of BSC in straights 6-3, 6-2.

In doubles action, Filinov and Bukatin dropped an 8-4 decision to Luca Cerenko and Bryan Bailey of Oglethorpe.  Saari and Rumyantsev remained in play by knocking off the Emory tandem of Colin Egan and Overdiek.  The Bishop duo then teamed to defeat Averett's Juuso Tapaninen and Joonas Jalkanen by an 8-1 score before ending the tourney with an 8-2 loss to Boren/Caplan.

The Battling Bishops have now wrapped up their fall season and will begin preparing for spring play.