Members of the NC State men’s tennis team saw mixed results this past weekend when they traveled to Wilmington to participate in the Seahawk Fall Invitational.

Five universities competed at the three-day tournament: NC State, the University of Richmond, Tulane, the University of South Carolina Upstate and UNC-Wilmington. Freshmen Michael Ogden and Chris Mikrovas and sophomore Shoti Meparidze represented the Pack on the court. All three players also played in the NC State Invitational last weekend.

The doubles team of Mikrovas and Meparidze, who had been partnered in doubles last weekend, went undefeated in all of its matches and started off the weekend defeating University of Richmond’s juniors Canyon Teague and Stathi Kyriakides 7-6 (3). The two finished strong, winning 6-4 over senior Santtu Leskinen and sophomore Javier Restrepo from UNC-W.  

“This weekend went much better then last weekend; after playing together in the NC State tournament we practiced doubles together every day to fix what needed work so we could play better the rest of the semester and in the spring,” Meparidze said. “We played pretty good guys in the last match, and we won, so our improvement from last week showed.”

Meparidze continued his play in the singles, falling to sophomore Xander Veys of UNCW in the first match and junior Johnathan Quenard of the University of Richmond in his last match.

“The last match was the toughest,” Meparidze said. “I won the second set and was leading in the third set the whole time and was just one point away from winning the match. The guy then got lucky and made a comeback and was able to win the match point. It was a bit disappointing, but I still won the match before it.”

Meparidze made his rebound, however, going on to win his match against senior Jamie Yates of USC-Upstate in straight sets. This win marked Meparidze’s 10th of the season and put him in the lead for number of singles wins in the season so far.

“I felt pretty confident going into the match,” Meparidze said. “I played really well against the guy, and I can tell I’ve gotten better since the semester started, so I’m looking forward to the spring seasons after seeing how well these tournaments are preparing us.”

Mikrovas won two out of his three singles matches, starting off strong winning straight sets against sophomore Tyler Cramer of UNC-W. His second match was tougher, resulting in Mikrovas falling to freshman Lenhard Haupt of USC-Upstate. He made a comeback to end the tournament, defeating junior Stathi Kyriakides of the University of Richmond 1-6, 6-3, 6-0. The Seahawk Invitational marked  his second collegiate appearance. The freshman has won four out of his total five matches played in only two tournaments.

NC State will next be seen on the court at the Wake Forest Invitational Friday through Sunday.