Closing out its fall season, the Binghamton University men’s tennis team continued its strong play as they head into the winter break. This past weekend at the Cornell Fall Indoor Invitational, the Bearcats dominated the tournament, with a standout performance by sophomore Alex Haggai who won the “B” singles event.

“I think we had a good fall season,” said Binghamton head coach Adam Cohen. “We had multiple guys win different tournaments. Alex won two, Arnav [Jain] won a tournament, Gilbert [Wong] was a runner-up, Evan [Algier] won at Cornell and Sven [Vloedgraven] won the regionals.”

In the “B” singles event, Haggai advanced to the finals, defeating Case Western’s John Smetona, Buffalo’s George Tibil and Cornell’s Mirza Klis. In the finals, Haggai defeated Marist’s Nicholas Pisecky 6-7, 7-6, 6-1.

“I think we have got a pretty deep team right now,” said Cohen. “Come this spring I will have a lot of options [with the lineup].”

In “A” singles, sophomore Gilbert Wong finished a strong fall season defeating Duquesne’s Jeremy McClelland and Marist’s Christian Coley. In Wong’s first match, he defeated McClelland 7-5, 6-4 before taking out Coley 5-7, 6-2, 6-4. In the semifinal round Cornell’s Andy Gauthier defeated Wong 6-3, 6-7, 10-6 on his way to winning the flight. Earlier in the season Gauthier won the “B” Singles and “B” doubles at the Princeton Invitational. Gauthier defeated Binghamton’s Arnav Jain in the quarterfinal round 7-6(4), 6-3.

Senior Moshe Levy was eliminated in the first round of the “A” singles, but followed up with a strong consolation performance, winning the consolation bracket. In the finals, Levy defeated Duquesne’s McClelland 8-6.

In the “C” singles, junior Evan Algier continued his impressive fall season advancing to the finals against Marist’s Matt Himmelsbach. Algier had a bye in the opening round before defeating Navy’s Matt Richmond 6-4, 6-2 and Cornell’s Rich Offutt 4-4 (Offutt retired due to injury). In the finals, Himmelsbach defeated Algier 6-2, 6-2. Also in the “C” bracket, Binghamton freshman Ruben Devos, advanced to the semifinal round before losing to Himmelsbach.

In the “D” bracket, BU freshman Bastian Bornkessel, advanced to the semifinal round before losing to Buffalo’s Alex Kalinin. This was Bornkessel’s first time playing this year. In the same bracket, teammate sophomore Rafael Rodrigues lost to Cornell’s Ashish Bhandari in the opening round. Rodrigues later dropped his consolation match to Navy’s Nick Birger.

“Our two new guys [Devos and Bornkessel] did well,” said coach Cohen. “Bornkessel won two good matches before he lost to the eventual champion. I am expecting the new guys to both contribute. Bornkessel and Devos are good players and I hope they can give us some wins at singles and doubles throughout the spring season.”

In the “E” bracket, junior Andreas Danielsson advanced to the semifinal round before losing to Duquesne’s Kyle O’Leary. Sophomore Alper Alimoglu won his first round match before losing to Cornell’s Charles Quay.

In first doubles play, Bornkessel and Devos advanced to the semifinal round, and Haggai and Jain advanced to the quarterfinals before being eliminated. In second doubles, Danielsson and Wong advanced to the semifinals, and Algier and Rodrigues were knocked out in the quarterfinals.

This Thursday, junior Sven Vloedgraven will travel to Yale for the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championship. The rest of the team will have about two months off before they head to Army Jan. 23 for the Army Invitational.