After performing extremely well in its first two tournaments, the third tournament of the fall season was a humbling experience for Binghamton University’s men’s tennis team. This past weekend at the Princeton Farnsworth Invitational, the team won a total of four games and lost nine, going 3-7 in singles play and 1-2 in doubles.

The tournament boasted loads of tough competition — a recurring theme for the Bearcats’ fall schedule.

“We’re competing against the best teams in the region almost every weekend,” said head coach Adam Cohen. “Columbia is going to be one of the top teams in the Ivy League. [The same can be said of] Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Penn.” Cohen set a goal of breaking the top 10 in the regional rankings; playing this tough schedule will certainly help prepare them for the spring season, in which they will play many more matches.

The most successful Bearcat at Princeton was sophomore Sven Vloedgraven, who was competing in the A flight. Vloedgraven won two of his three singles matches, his only loss coming in the third set with a super tie-breaker at the hands of Jeff Dawson, a very tough opponent from Yale.

“I think I personally played well,” Vloedgraven said. “I played three tough guys, all from Ivy League schools [Princeton, Yale and Cornell] … My loss was a little disappointing because I played really well and felt I was able to beat him, but I unfortunately couldn’t finish it …”

Sophomore Andreas Danielson, the only other Bearcat to win a singles match in Princeton, was victorious in his first match of the tournament against Ilya Trubov of Princeton University in the B flight. Danielson proceeded to drop his next two matches. Both sophomore Evan Algier, who was competing in the B flight, and freshman Gilbert Wong, A flight, lost their only two singles matches.

It was the first event of the fall season for both Algier and Danielson. Coach Cohen believes that both players just need some more experience before they reach their full potential.

“Evan showed some signs of good, competitive play,” Cohen said. “He just needs more match play. And the same is true for Andreas Danielson — he’s playing OK, but he’s kind of streaky.”

To avoid exceeding the quota set by the NCAA on the number of tournaments that teams can compete in over the course of the year, Binghamton did not bring two of their top players: sophomore Arnav Jain, who won honors at their last tournament, and junior Moshe Levy. More specifically, the regulation states that no tennis team may enter more than 25 tournaments per year (this includes the spring season). Cohen also thought that it was important for the two players to get some rest.

Coach Cohen will bring the entire squad to Brown this weekend for the Brown Invitational where they will face more stiff competition. Yale, Georgetown, Binghamton and host Brown will face off in many singles matches. The team leaves tomorrow.