St. John's University Athletics
Desmarteaux Takes Second Place At 2007 Columbia Winter Classic
1/29/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
St. John???s men???s tennis captain Louis Desmarteaux (Thornhill, Ontario) placed second at the 2007 Columbia Winter Classic this weekend. The No. 3 seed defeated three Ivy League opponents, including the tournament???s second seed Jared Drucker of Columbia, on his way to the final round.
Desmarteaux overpowered Scott Deneberg of Harvard in the opening round (6-4, 5-7, 6-1), and then went on to top Princeton???s George Carpeni (6-1, 6-3) in the quarterfinals. The No. 2 and No. 3 seeds at the Columbia Classic faced off in the semifinals on Saturday, where Desmarteaux topped Drucker in an intense three set match (6-7, 7-5, 6-4). With the triumph, Desmarteaux advanced to the final round to face Mark Clemente of Columbia, who was seeded fourth. Clemente served up a two set victory (6-3, 6-4) to win the tournament???s crown.
Sophomore Artem Vlasenko (St. Petersburg, Russia) advanced to the quarterfinals of the A Flight after defeating Marty Moore of Columbia (7-6, 7-5). Vlasenko faced the No. 1 seed Chris Clayton of Harvard in the second round. Clayton came away with the victory (6-0, 6-4).
In the B Flight, freshman Martin Kosut (Koscie, Slovakia) topped Josh Lederman of Yale (6-2, 7-5) in the opening round, but fell (4-6, 6-1, 6-4) to Zoltan Bus of Manhattan in the quarterfinals. Sophomore Alex Svetlakov (Minsk, Belarus) saw an early elimination from the main draw after a three set loss to Michael Accordino of Columbia (6-1, 0-6, 6-2) on Friday.
Svetlakov entered the tournament???s consolation bracket and advanced to the finals with victories over Matt Schimmel of Yale (7-5, 6-2) and Justin Chow of Columbia (2-6, 7-5, 6-2). He faced Columbia???s Jonathan Wong in the final match, falling in three sets (2-6, 6-3, 6-4).
In doubles action, the Red Storm???s No. 1 pair Desmarteaux and Svetlakov swept David and Diego Alvarado of Manhattan, 8-0, in the first round. The duo advanced to the semifinals with an 8-4 victory over Drucker and Chow, but fell to Clemente and Wong, 8-5. In other doubles play, senior Tom Green (Norwich, England) and freshman Derek Wallensteen (Port Albernie, Canada) were defeated by Deneberg and Clayton, 8-2, in the opening round.
The Red Storm returns to action on Friday, Feb. 2 against the Bearcats of Binghamton. First serve is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the indoor courts at Cunningham Park.
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