PRINCETON, N.J. — Sophomore
Rethin Pranav Senthil Kumar and senior
Felipe Pinzon each won in straight sets Friday, clinching their spots into the singles round of 16 on the opening day of the Ivy League Invitational Automatic Qualifier at Princeton.
The singles and doubles champions each earn the Ivy League's automatic bid to the ITA Conference Masters Championships, Nov. 5-8 at the Rome Tennis Center in Rome, Ga. The tournament runs through Monday, Oct. 26.
Senthil Kumar, the No. 2 seed, gave up just three games in a 6-1, 6-2 win over Harvard's David Wu. The victory improves on his showing at last year's qualifier at Penn, where he fell in three sets in the round of 32.
Pinzon beat Yale's Ethan Chung, 6-3, 6-4, to reach the round of 16 for the second straight year. At last year's event he beat Dartmouth's Miles Groom in the opening round before falling to Harvard's Rohan Murali.
Junior
Rushil Khosla drew the tournament's top seed, Princeton's Simeon Stankovic, and fell 6-2, 6-3. Sophomore
Jack Casciato dropped the first set 6-2 to Brown's Gautam Venkatraman, then pushed the second set to 7-5 before losing in straight sets.
In doubles, Pinzon and Casciato took Penn's fourth-seeded Callum Markowitz and Zaid Mashni the distance before falling 8-7 (12). The Quakers won an extended tiebreak, 14-12.
Senthil Kumar meets Columbia's Shaan Patel in the round of 16 on Saturday, Oct. 24. Patel needed three sets to get past Brown's Lukas Phimvongsa, 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-4. Pinzon faces Penn's third-seeded Shaurya Bharadwaj, who gave up just four games in a 6-2, 6-2 win over Columbia's Junghee You. All matches are streamed on IvyLeague.tv.
