Sept. 20, 2016
By T.J. Stricklin
Cary, N.C. - Auburn completed its first weekend of men's tennis fall competition with a singles and doubles title to its credit at the Duke James Bonk Invitational.
As a number-four seed, freshman Carles Sarrio defeated Chris Humphreys of Elon, Ladd Harrison of North Carolina, Michael Ogden of North Carolina State and Jonathan Deautriell of North Florida en route to the Black singles bracket championship.
Maxime Hinnisdaels and Conner Huertas del Pino teamed up to win the White bracket championship in doubles. They defeated Chad Kissell and Dave Bacalla from Valparaiso, Charlie Ernhardt and Jeffrey Schorsch, also from Valparaiso, and Robert Kelly and Joshua Peck from North Carolina.
"It was a great weekend to see the guys compete and to implement the things we have worked on during last week's practice," Auburn head coach Bobby Reynolds said. "Even with all our wins over the weekend, I'm encouraged that there is still a lot of room for improvement both on and off the court."
The Tigers had three singles competitors and two doubles teams competing in the tournament hosted by Duke last weekend.
In the White singles bracket, senior Huertas del Pino defeated North Carolina's Robert Kelly on Friday, the tournament's top seed, in three sets (6-4, 4-6, 6-3). He proceeded to win one more singles performance that day by defeating Sean Hill of Wake Forest.
Sophomore Brandon Laubser started by picked up three wins on his way to third place in the Blue singles bracket by defeating Philip Moebius of VCU, Maksim Kan of West Florida and TJ Pura of Duke.
Also in the Blue bracket, senior Hinnisdaels got off to a slow start on Friday against Salvador Mijares of Elon, but turned his fortunes around Saturday in the consolation bracket, defeating Lasse Muscheites of North Florida and Igor Savelijic of North Carolina State.
In the Blue doubles bracket, the tandem of Laubser and Sarrio picked up a win by defeating Jason Lapidus and TJ Pura from Duke.
Auburn's only home action of the fall season will come October 14-17 when the Tigers host the ITA Southern Regional at the Yarbrough Tennis Center.