Men’s Tennis headed to the Binghamton Spring Invitational this past weekend to face off against NJIT and Siena. To start the weekend, the Orange & Blue fell 5-2 to NJIT after securing two wins in the doubles segment, but falling in the singles. 

For the doubles wins, Tim Zelikovsky ’24 and Liam Kilmer ’27 won 6-4 in their No. 3 doubles match, and Adam Stavrakas ’26 and Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega ’26 won 6-4 in their No. 2 doubles match. 

Amar Tahirovic ’26 and Brendan McDonald ’26 lost 6-3 in the No. 1 doubles match 

As for the singles matches, Tahirovic won his first set 6-4 in the No. 1 singles match but lost in the following two sets 4-6 and 0-6. Stavrakas also fell in his No. 2 singles match, losing in two sets (7-5 and 6-1). In the No. 3 singles match, Bain Moreno de Vega lost the first and third set 6-1 and 6-4 respectively, but won the second set 7-5. The No.4 and No. 5 single matches also resulted in wins for NJIT, but in the No.6 match, Zelikovsky earned a win. 

“My mindset heading into the tournament at Binghamton was really just to be the best version of myself and try to play my best tennis with no pressure. Being a sophomore now, I feel way less pressure and am not as nervous as I was freshman year. I told myself no matter what the result was, I was still going to give my all and make my teammates proud,” Tahirovic said. “As captain too, I really wanted to show a lot of support to my teammates going into our first “tournament” of the Spring Season. A huge part of my mindset was positivity and resiliency and proving to my teammates that we are built for matches like these.”

Bouncing back from the loss swiftly, the Bison defeated Siena 6-1 on the following Sunday morning. 

Tahirovic had an impressive morning with both a No. 1 singles and doubles match win. Tahirovic and McDonald secured a 6-1 win, as did Bain Moreno de Vega and Stavrakas in the No. 2 doubles match. 

Of the six singles matches, the Bison secured five of them. Tahirovic beat Siena 6-3, 6-2, Bain Moreno de Vega secured the No. 3 win in straight sets, as did No. 5 Zelikovsky and No. 6 Will Robinson ’27. Kilmer won the No. 4 match with a 10-1 win in the third set. 

This Saturday, Feb. 10 Men’s Tennis travels to New Jersey to take on Rider University.