ST. PETER, Minn. – The St. Olaf College men's tennis team got its season under way at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Midwest Regional Championships and Midwest Open tournaments hosted by Gustavus Adolphus College from Friday through Monday.

Sophomore Bogdan Vizoli and first year Marjan Veldic represented St. Olaf in the ITA singles draw and teamed up in the doubles draw along with sophomore Henry Kruse and senior Max Loesch. Kruse and Loesch were among 10 Oles who competed in the Midwest Open singles and doubles draws.

Vizoli advanced to the round of 32 in singles with a pair of super-tiebreaker victories before bowing out to eventual runner-up and No. 4 seed Luke VanDonslear of UW-Whitewater. The sophomore recovered from dropping the opening set of his first-round match with Liam Lynch of Macalester College to post a 1-6, 7-5, 10-7 win before knocking off No. 17 seed Graham Peterson of Coe College by a 6-2, 1-6, 10-7 score.

Veldic lost his first-round encounter with Diego Silva of Carthage College by a 6-2, 6-1 margin. In doubles, Vizoli and Veldic upset No. 9 seed Jack Rivkin and Richy Jing of Carleton by an 8-6 score in the opening round before downing Clark Rue and Miguel Lopez of the Milwaukee School of Engineering by the same score. In the round of 16, the duo came up against the fifth-seeded duo of Jack Bergmeyer and Rafael Costa of Gustavus and fell 8-4.

Kruse and Loesch opened their showing in the doubles draw with an 8-6 victory over Ryan Fonseca and Sam Murillo of UW-Eau Claire before dropping an 8-3 decision to No. 5 seed Sam Rudenberg and Deuce Daniel of Grinnell College in the round of 32.
Senior Jakub Belik made the deepest run of the four Oles in the Midwest Open B singles bracket, advancing to the round of 16 with back-to-back super-tiebreaker victories before bowing out to Jasper Yang of Carleton College in straight sets.

In the Midwest Open C singles bracket, three Oles advanced to the quarterfinals and two made it to the semifinals, including first year Cathal Mee, who made it all the way to the championship match. Mee won five-straight matches, including a super-tiebreaker victory over senior Ben Anderson in the quarterfinals, to make it to the championship match where he fell 0-6, 6-1, 10-8 to Will Deters of Saint John's University.

Two of Anderson's three victories before he matched up with Mee came in super tiebreakers. Junior Joao Costa joined Mee in the semifinals with four victories in a row before bowing out with a 7-6, 6-3 loss to Deters.

St. Olaf travels to Concordia-Moorhead for its first Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) dual match of the season on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 1:30 p.m.