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Farnsworth Invitational gives players chance to impress

The Princeton men’s tennis team hosted the 47th Farnsworth Invitational this weekend at the Lenz Tennis Center. The tournament is Princeton’s annual home singles and doubles tournament featuring Army, Binghamton, Boston College, Bucknell, Drexel, Fairleigh Dickinson, Georgetown, Lehigh, Marist, Monmouth, New Jersey Institute of Technology, St. John’s, Temple and Wisconsin. The tournament provided some early insight for the team and allowed fringe players to compete for starting roles in the spring.

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Seniors Mohamed El Tonbari and Florin Radu represented Princeton in the tournament alongside junior Jonathan Carcione and freshman Jimmy Wasserman. In the round of 16 played on Friday, Radu, Carcione and Wasserman were all victorious in straight sets, with Radu winning 6-1, 6-4, Carcione winning 6-2, 6-3, and Wasserman winning 6-1, 6-2. However, El Tonbari was also beaten in straight sets against John Zordani of Wisconsin, 6-4, 6-2.

In the doubles matches, the pair of Radu and Wasserman were defeated in the round of 32, before winning the round of 16 match in the consolation draw. Carcione and El Tonbari fared much better, defeating the Boston College pair 8-3 in the round of 16, before thrashing the NJIT pair 8-0 in the quarterfinals.

Carcione and El Tonbari continued their momentum in the semifinal on Saturday, defeating the Wisconsin pair of Sprecher and Sweet to book their spot in the final. However, Radu and Wasserman were defeated in their doubles match.

The singles matches did not turn out much better for the Tigers either, as both Carcione and Wasserman were defeated in straight sets in the quarterfinal, while Radu lost in the semifinal and El Tonbari was dropped in the consolation round of 16.

Heading into the final day, for the singles Wasserman defeated Army’s Sam Lampman 6-4, 6-2 in the Singles Consolation Semifinal. The other results all came from extra matches. Carcione won in a tiebreaker 10-5 over John Zordani of Wisconsin, Radu defeated BC’s Alexandre Thirouin in straight sets and El Tonbari lost to Wisconsin’s Jose Carranza in a very competitive 12-10 tiebreaker.

In the doubles bracket, the duo of Carcione and El Tonbari lost in the final to Wisconsin’s pair 8-0 in the super set. In the extra match Radu and Wasserman lost 8-5 to Wisconsin’s second pair. Coach Billy Pate said “Though we didn’t get wins in doubles today we came back and played well in the remaining singles matches. We might have left a few wins out there this weekend, but we gained a lot while working on tactical aspects we wanted to focus on. Overall, we saw quality effort from guys vying for starting spots in the lineup this spring.”

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The team has the next weekend off before going to Yale for the ITA/USTA Northeast Regional on Oct. 22.

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