St. Mary's University News Center

Jake Williams narrowly fell in the opening round of the men's 64 draw. (File Photo)
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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The USTA/ITA Regional Championships got underway Friday, with St. Mary’s men’s tennis player Andrej Klipa advancing to the second round before falling to Incarnate Word’s Leury Arias 6–4, 6–3.

Klipa (Jr., Belgrade, Serbia) had impressively beaten NWMSU’s Anthony Gromoutis 6–2, 6–0 to make the second round.

In other men’s 64 draw action, Nestor Moreno (Sr., Bogota, Colombia) was defeated by St. Edward’s Eduardo Bencke 6–1, 6–1.

Jake Williams (Sr., Dallas) and Marcin Marczewski (Sr., Warsaw, Poland) also were trumped, with Williams falling to St. Edward’s Filip Pavolivc 7–6, 7–5, and Marczewski retiring while tied 6–6 with Abilene Christian’s John Strahl.

In doubles action, Marczewski/Klipa fell to TSU–MO’s Ohlhausen/Smith in the first round by default, while Williams/Moreno lost to DBU’s Abel/Allen 6–4, 7–6.

The tournament will resume Saturday.

St. Mary’s University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men’s basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men’s golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men’s golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary’s also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary’s student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit www.stmarytx.edu/athletics.