Kalinin Wins Singles Title at Cornell Invitational

Alex Kalinin

ITHACA, NY – University at Buffalo sophomore Alex Kalinin won the D singles title at the Cornell Wicked Invitational as the Bulls capped the fall tournament schedule over the Halloween weekend.

Kallinin scored a 7-5, 7-5 win over Marcus Von Nordheim of Marist in Sunday's championship match. He finished with a 4-0 record in the flight with a pair of his wins coming via super-tiebreakers.

Kalinin opened play on Friday with a three-set victory over Cornell's Jared Karson, winning the third-set super-tiebreaker, 10-5, after splitting the first two sets by identical 6-1 scores. Kalinin then rolled to a 6-2, 6-3 win over Sean Carr of Case Western to reach the semifinal round. He needed a rally to win his semifinal match over Binghamton's Bastian Bornkessel. After dropping the opening set to Bornkessel, 6-2, Kalinin scored a 6-3 win in the second set to force the super-tiebreaker. In the breaker, Kalinin rolled into the finals by defeating Bornkessel, 10-3.

Kirill Kolomyts reached the semifinal round of the A flight after posting a pair of wins. Kolomyts opened with a 6-2, 6-0 over Navy's Jeremy New. He then downed Jeremy Quiroz of Niagara, 6-2, 6-3.

Kristof Custers and Mitch Zenaty reached the consolation finals of the C and D flights, respectively.

"I am very pleased with our overall performance this weekend," said head coach Lee Nickell. "Alex made great strides closing out three tough matches and as always our team competed with great character and heart. We still have some things to iron out and we are excited to get better every day until spring."