MAGNOLIA, Ark. – The first major competition on the fall slate arrives Friday for sixth-year head coach
Greg Owen's Southern Arkansas Mulerider Men's Tennis team. SAU travels to Topeka, Kansas for the three-day Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Central Region Championship hosted by Washburn University. The action will be contested both at WU and Kossover Tennis Center. Fans can view results daily at
ITA / (wearecollegetennis.com).
Ninety-two athletes are set to compete in the singles draw, while forty-three doubles teams will vie for the title.
In doubles action, the pairs of Tennant and Fischer (Flight A), Calisti and Mimaud (Flight B), Valkyser and Copin (Flight A), Breitenmoser and Gheorge (Flight B) will compete. At 9 a.m. on Friday, Valkyser and Coppin face Emporia State's Anton Sarunic and Gwendal Mazuay with Breitenmoser and Gheorge scheduled to take on Harding's Cas de Ruiter and Teodor Zlatar. Tennant and Fischer round out Flight A for SAU with a 9 a.m. first serve against Augustana's Henry Dornbusch and Thomas Kano.
Flight B matches Calisti and Mimaud against Ouachita's Aaron Osmond and Yosua Lumbanradja at 9 a.m.
Southern Arkansas singles representatives include
Yanis Mimaud,
Adrian Gheorge,
Gabriel Breitenmoser,
Valerio Calisti,
Tim Fischer,
Ole Valkyser,
Pierre Copin and
Matthew Tennant. All eight singles players will begin action on Friday from Flight A.
Breitenmoser opens play against Northwest Missouri's Andrea Zamurri with Tennant also facing a Bearcat in Jan Skerbatis. Mimaud battles Harding's Teodor Zlatar in his opening draw. All three begin at 10: 30 a.m. on Friday. At noon, Valkyser meets Newman's Ali Mounir and Calisti plays Washburn's Sebastian Pjontek. The 12:15 time slot places Fischer against Harding's Caleb Folse, Gheorge against Nebraska-Kearney's Maksym Kulish and Coppin against UNK's Jip Mens.
The Muleriders are coming off of a season-opening performance at the Tyler Invitational. Highlighting the action were a pair of singles victories by Mulerider newcomer
Yanis Mimaud, while Gheorge finished as runner-up in Flight 3 singles action.
In 2021, former Mulerider All-American Marko Nikoliuk won the ITA Central Region singles title to earn an ITA Cup bid where teammate and former All-American
Sander Jans joined him. In 2019, Nikoliuk placed as the regional runner-up in singles play and was joined in Rome, Georgia by doubles teammates Aleksandr Pokusaev and Yuri Gondouin.
Results of the action can be found at the link above as well on
www.MuleriderAthletics.com.
