Detroit's magical run comes to an end in hard-fought quarterfinals bout

The University of Detroit Mercy men's tennis team saw its historical run reach the quarterfinals of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's (ITA) Midwest Regional Championships on Sunday at the Michigan Varsity Tennis Center in Ann Arbor.

The Titan top doubles duo of senior Pjotrs Necajevs (Riga, Latvia/Herdera Vidusskola) and freshman Alex Latosinsky (Sarnia, ON/St. Christopher's) advanced to the final eight teams with a 9-8 (2) victory over John Haley and Robert Fox from Cleveland State in the morning session.

"This weekend was just a great testament to how hard our guys work," UDM head coach Grant Asher said. "It was a tremendous accomplishment for a second-year program to reach this feat and we definitely caused a lot of buzz in Ann Arbor with the play of our freshmen."

Detroit then drew the second seed in Ohio State's Chase Buchanan and Justin Kronauge, who were ranked 26th in the country by the ITA in the preseason poll. The Titans gave the Buckeye squad all they could handle, but OSU would end the UDM fall season by a slim 8-6 margin.

The Titans got to this point by winning a thrilling 9-8 (2) decision over Thomas Calderone and Pablo Olivarez of Western Michigan in their opening match, and then eliminated Wisconsin's Michael Dierberger and Patrick Pohlmann, who were seeded 12th in the tournament, 8-5 in the second round.

Necajevs ended the fall campaign with a 12-2 record in singles, including an opening round win in the main draw of the regionals. He also went 6-1 teaming with Latosinsky in doubles. Latosinsky was 5-4 in singles to start his collegiate career, while fellow freshman Chris Cheung (Mississauga, ON/Erindale Secondary) was 5-6 in singles with a win in the ITA qualifying rounds.

Detroit will return to action in January with the regular season dual schedule, which will be released in the near future.

Release courtesy of Detroit Assistant SID P.J. Gradowski