Eagles Complete Play At ITA Regional Championships

Thursday, October 16

Athens, GA

All Day

Georgia Southern University

ITA Regional Championships

Kyle Hoffman defeated Florida Atlantic's Richard Meade

10/18/2014 7:27:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Hoffman Makes It To Round of 16 in Consolation Bracket

By: Erika Brennan

Athens, Ga. – The Eagles completed play today at the ITA Regional Championships. Both Ristomatti Lanne and Kyle Hoffman saw action in Singles today. Lanne competed for a chance to advance to the round of 16 in the Main Singles Bracket, while Hoffman took to the court for the round of 32 in the consolation singles bracket.

Lanne began the day against the tournament's top seed Austin Smith of the University of Georgia. Lanne fell in straight sets (6-2, 6-4).

"Ristomatti went 0 for 4 on break opportunities in the first set and struggled to really go after his shots," remarked Head Coach Nick Zieziula. "He was down 5-2 in the second set, got a solid hold and fought hard to finally convert a break point to make it 4-5 with serve. He rallied in that game from 15-40 down with 2 big serves but on the no-ad point Smith got a ball deep to the backhand side and Rise made an unforced error for the last point."

Zieziula continued, "Ristomatti played much better in the second set and went after his game more. When you're playing players [ranked] top 15 in the country you only get so many chances, Rise put himself in some good situations late in games but wasn't able to take advantage of enough of those opportunities."

Hoffman got the victory in the round of 32 consolation bracket as he defeated Florida Atlantic's Richard Meade (3-6, 6-2, 10-8). "Kyle started off with way too many unforced errors in the first set but responded well in the second set, he gained control of the points and the momentum," explained Zieziula. "The tiebreaker wasn't exactly how you would draw it up but he responded well when he was down in the mini-break. It is always good to find a way to pull out close matches and that was what he did."

In the round of 16, Hoffman battled Chris Barrus of the University of Central Florida but ultimately was defeated (6-3, 6-2). "Kyle put up a good fight but Barrus did a good job keeping the depth on his groundstrokes and that made it tough for Kyle to dictate enough from the baseline and with his approaches," concluded Zieziula

The Eagles now turn their attention to the Georgia Southern Championships being contested Friday – Sunday October 24th – 26th in Statesboro, Georgia.

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