Sept. 24, 2010
Complete Results
WACO, Texas - On the opening day of the HEB Baylor Men's Invitational, Julian Bley, Kike Grangeiro, Roberto Maytin and John Peers led Baylor as each player won his first two singles matches at the Baylor Tennis Center on Friday to advance into the round of 16.
The quartet of Bears also went undefeated in the doubles draw as each played a total of four matches on the day.
"I thought it was a great day," head coach Matt Knoll said. "Just a ton of tennis and all of our guys got to play a lot. I thought we fought hard on every court and I was really proud of everybody. It was a super start to our fall season."
The day's action kicked off at 8 a.m. as Baylor's doubles duos took to the court. Bley and Grangeiro won their opening match over Marius Cirstea and Alex Joitiou of Idaho, 8-4, while the 57th-ranked and the sixth-seeded team in the tournament of Maytin and Peers dispatched of Jason Lateko and Giacomo Sano of UT-Arlington, 8-0. BU's third tandem of Sergio Ramirez and Robert Verzaal fell to Jeff Dadamo and Austin Klores of Texas A&M, 8-4.
The Baylor contingent would then play two singles matches in the afternoon. The 28th-ranked and fifth-seeded Peers, playing in his first match for Baylor, made quick work of Vitor Manzini of Texas Tech, 6-3, 6-3 and then followed that with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Zach Nichols of TCU. Fellow newcomer, Grangeiro took out Mindavgas Celedinas of UT-Arlington 6-0, 6-2, before upsetting 16th-ranked and second-seeded Raony Carvalho of Texas Tech.
Bley earned his ticket to the round of 16 with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Jim Brouleau of New Mexico State and then a 6-3, 6-3 trouncing of Beau Bernstein of UT-Pan American. Maytin, a sophomore, got his two wins by defeating Slah Mbarek of TCU 6-4, 6-3 and then knocking out Lachlan Reed of Idaho 6-2, 6-0.
Both Robert Verzaal (6-1, 6-4 to Emanuel Brighiu of TCU) and Sergio Ramirez (7-5, 6-3 to No. 11 Tim Puetz of Auburn) lost their opening round matches and where forced into consolation play. In the opening round of consolation play both players would take walkover wins as their opponents withdrew from the tournament.
Baylor's only player in the B draw, Chris Gordon, dropped his opening round match to Alex Grubbs of Air Force 7-5, 6-0.
To close out the night Bley and Grangeiro took back to the court to upset 46th-ranked and fifth-seeded Alexey Grigorov and Niall Angus of Texas A&M, 8-3. Peers and Maytin would also take out an Aggie duo with an 8-3 win over Colin Hoover and Alberto Bautista.
"Both our doubles teams that won played well," Knoll said. "I think something that will help us down the road is that we didn't split sets in any of those singles matches. We have got those guys through to the round of 16 without any extra tennis. It is not easy to come out after playing a doubles match and two singles matches and then play that last doubles. You are just mentally and emotionally worn down, but our guys did a great job in that late match."
The BU pairings will be on the court Saturday morning at 9 a.m. to compete in the round of 16, singles and more doubles matches will follow as courts become available.
For complete results and updated draws visit: the tournament's web site.
