In their final competition of the fall season the Men’s Tennis team finished in wonderful style. Winning the B1 flight Felix Insaurralde had some tough competition.
The tournament has always been host to a small field. In 2001, only five teams were invited, but this year it’s been upped to seven teams. That in no way takes back from the competitions played.
Along with ETSU and University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the host team, the field included Illinois, Portland, Tennessee, Fresno State and Utah. The most powerful team playing this weekend was Illinois, who was able to finish last season as the No. 2 team in the nation.
In Friday’s first two rounds Oscar Posada was able to make the semi-finals with wins against Portland University’s James Redparth (6-4, 6-4) and Fresno State’s Jakub Cech.
On Saturday, Posada played in the semi-finals against national ranked No. 67 Aviram Salomon from host school UNLV.
Posada pulled off a huge upset defeating Salomon (6-4, 6-4) to advance to the finals. UNLV got their revenge though when Joel Kielbowicz won the flight one championship, upsetting Posada in a hard match (7-6, 6-1, 6-1). Posada’s loss gave him a second place finish in the Rebel Classic.
In the second flight, the Bucs had two competitors, Felix Insaurralde and Fernando Fiuri. Insaurralde made it to the semi-finals with wins on Friday, first defeating Fresno State’s Sam Tadevosian (6-0, 6-3) followed by a (6-3, 6-1) defeat of Matt Berry from Tennessee to advance to Saturday’s semi-final round.
Fernando Fiuri’s first and second round matches also led him to the semi-finals. In his first match, Fiuri defeated UNLV’s Milos Blagojevic (7-6, 6-0) before defeating Utah’s Ryan Scott (6-1, 6-3) to move on up in the tournament.
On Saturday, Fiuri played Illinois’s Andrew Eklov. The match was a tough one that ended up Eklov defeating Fiuri (6-1, 6-4). With the loss, Fiuri finished the tournament in third place. Insaurralde defeated Andy Sinn from Fresno State (7-5, 6-3) to advance to the finals.
Insaurralde went on to the finals to play Eklov. ETSU got some sweet revenge on Illinois defeating Eklov (6-4, 3-6, 6-1) to win the flight two championship giving Insaurralde a first place finish.
This concludes the men’s tennis season. They will begin regular season play in January 2005.

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