TENNIS: Strong showing for men’s tennis at Yale Invitational
The men’s tennis team continues with their strong start to the fall season while hosting the Yale Invitational.
Yale Athletics
This past weekend, the Yale Men’s Tennis team hosted the Yale Invitational at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. Penn State, Cornell, Buffalo and New Jersey Institute of Technology were among the teams competing.
On Friday, the Bulldogs racked up three wins to start the invitational strong. In doubles, the seasoned duo of Luke Neal ’25 and Renaud Lefevre ’26 defeated Alexander Sterin and Denys Forgaci of Penn State 7–5. In singles, first-year standout Edward Liao ’28 continued with his dominant start to his college career, winning his match 6–0, 6–2 against Aman Sharma of Cornell. Lefevre also picked up another victory in singles, defeating Sam Bossem of Penn State 6–7(6), 6–2, 6–1. Krish Gupta ’28 and Luke Neal were defeated in their singles matches.
Looking to build off the momentum of the first day, the men’s team had an impressive second day of the Yale Invitational. In doubles, Liao and Gupta beat Charl Morgan and Sam Bossem of Penn State 6–3. Neal and Lefevre defeated a duo of Nittany Lions, winning their match 7–6(1).
In singles on day two, the Bulldogs won three of their four matches.
Gupta led the way, bouncing back from a loss on Friday to defeat Soma Fukuhara of NJIT 6–3, 4–6, 6–4. Lefevre continued with his impressive weekend, winning his match against Buffalo’s Theodoros Mitsakos 6–4, 3–6, 6–4. Neal rounded out the team’s scoring by overpowering Penn State’s Alexander Sterin 6–4, 6–3. Liao fought hard but fell to Peter Teodorovic of Cornell 3–6, 3–6.
On the last day of the Yale Invitational, the Bulldogs came up victorious in three of their five matches, solidifying the weekend’s success.
In doubles, the dynamic duo of first-years Liao and Gupta defeated Nolan Ranger and Shrikeshav Murugesan of Penn State 6–3. On the singles side, Neal won a super tiebreaker over Penn State’s Ranger 6–1, 6–7, 10–3.
Gupta racked up his second victory of the day as well, defeating Charl Morgan of Penn State 6–4, 6–3. Lefevre and Liao both came up short against their opponents from Cornell.
“It was definitely a tough weekend. I had a busy week leading up to the tournament so trying to balance studying and practicing was extremely tough mentally.” Gupta told the News. “It showed the first day when I was extremely sluggish on court and overall energy was not there but after talking with Coach Lalo, I was able to push myself the last two days and get the results I wanted.”
The Bulldogs have some time off before they jump back into action at the ITA New England Regional, hosted in Cambridge, Massachusetts from Oct. 17 to Oct. 21.