The Binghamton University men’s tennis team had an outstanding showing this past weekend at the USTA National Tennis Center Invitational in Flushing, N.Y. Highlighted with wins by junior Arnav Jain and sophomore Gilbert Wong, the team showed that it will most definitely be a force to reckon with once scored events begin later in the season.

In the finals of the “C” singles event, Jain made quick work of Marist College’s Loic Sessagesimi, winning the title by the score of 6-2, 6-1.

“Arnav had a pretty good weekend,” said Binghamton head coach Adam Cohen. “He won four straight matches, all in straight sets without many problems.”

On his way to the title, Jain never struggled while defeating several opponents who had impressive resumes of their own.

“The second match he played a guy from Cornell who is going to play in their top six,” said Cohen. “He actually won his flight at Princeton last week and beat a couple of good guys there and Arnav beat him easily. The next round Arnav beat a guy from Boston College who will probably play in their third or fourth singles position and then the guy he beat in the final plays one or two for Marist.”

Wong won three matches on his way to finishing runner-up in the “B” Singles event after being defeated 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 by Princeton’s Matt Spindler. While it’s always heartbreaking to lose in the finals, Cohen made it clear that it was still a successful tournament for Wong.

“I thought Gilbert played well the first three days,” Cohen said. “He played a couple of good matches until the final and he knows that.”

In addition to Jain and Wong, reigning America East Player of the Year Sven Vloedgraven and sophomore Alexandre Haggai also participated in the singles events. After winning two matches and advancing to the quarterfinals, Vloedgraven lost 7-5, 7-5 to Princeton’s Matija Pecotic in the “A” Singles event. In the “D” Singles event, Haggai won two matches before losing 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals to eventual champion Mike Lampa from St. John’s University.

For Binghamton University in doubles, the pair of Vloedgraven and Wong lost 8-2 to Brown University’s Kendrick Au and Charlie Posner in the quarterfinals of the “A” event, while freshman Ruben Devos and Haggai were defeated 8-4 by Cornell’s Evan Bernstein and Jon Fife in the round of 16 in the “B” event.

Fall tournaments like this one are great ways for the team to work on their game and prepare for the more important matches later in the season.

“My expectation is just that they continue to improve each week and each month,” said Cohen. “And by the end of the spring semester that they’re playing their best tennis of the year.”

Next on the schedule for the Bearcats is the Brown Invitational, scheduled for this weekend.

“I think we’ll bring most of the team, most of the team that’s eligible [and] healthy to compete,” said Cohen. “It’s going to be a disguise dual format, which means there’s no team scoring and it’s played like a dual match that you would play in the spring. It’s us, Brown, Boston College and Georgetown. It’s our goal to just get in some decent matches for the guys. The biggest tournament of the fall is coming up, the Northeast Regional at Dartmouth in the middle of October. So we’ll try to get our guys some good quality matches before that event starts.”