Men's Tennis Shines On Day 1 of ITA Atlantic Regional Championship

BLACKSBURG, Va. – The Temple men's tennis team picked up wins in two sets to move on to the main draw of the 2015 ITA Atlantic Regional Championship, hosted by Virginia Tech. Hicham Belkssir,

Uladzimir Dorash and Filip Stipcic all participated in the qualifying draw.

"The guys had a good first day. I'm really happy with the way Uladzimir played, winning his two matches as well Hicham and Filip, who also won their first round matches," said head coach Steve Mauro.

Dorash, the freshman from Grondo, Belarus was victorious in both of his matches to advance to the round of 128, where will face Old Dominion's Justin Herrea. In his first match on Thursday, Dorash defeated Ben Gerber of Bucknell, 6-4, 6-2 before pulling out a three-set victory over James Madison's Tristan Stitt, 4-6, 6-0, 6-4.

Stipcic won his initial match against George Mason's Tanner Baine, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 but fell to Will Sharton of Georgetown, 6-3, 6-1. However, Stipcic will move on into the main draw as the one of the tournament's "lucky loser". Belkssir was the only Owl to not move on after winning his round of 32 match against Andrew Ong of Duquense, 6-4, 6-3 but then dropped to George Washington's Fernando Sala, 6-4, 6-4 in the round of 16.

Dorash and Stipcic will join Santiago Canete, Nicolas Paulus and Artem Kapshuk in the main draw on Friday. Three doubles teams will compete, including two matches against City Six rivals Villanova (Belkssir/Dorash vs. Thomas Dodson/Jimmy Purdy) and Saint Joseph's (Kapshuk/Nicolas Paulus vs. Renier Moolman/Andres Urrera).

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ITA Tournament Central