BLOOMSBURG, Pennsylvania- The Salem men's tennis team opened the season this past weekend at the ITA tournament in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. 
 
The Tigers men's tennis team opened the ITA tournament with their first match being doubles with Tomas Acuna and Skander Mezouar teaming up to take on Fairmont State in the first round. The Fairmont State duo was able to defeat the Tigers 6-1 to advance to the second round. In the Tigers second first round match up Daniel Paipa and Pablo Guillen teamed up to take on a pair from Frostburg State University in round one. The pair of Daniel Paipa and Pablo Guillen were able to win in round one by a score of 6-4. They would move onto round 2 where they would be defeated by Fairmont State by 7-5. The next Tigers duo was Simon Braeunig and Elias Hort who would take on a pair from West Virginia Wesleyan College in round 1. However, West Virginia Wesleyan was able to take the set 6-4 to advance to round 2.
 
The men's singles got underway Friday afternoon as the Tigers had four players competing. Pablo Guillen opened the singles taking on Jaime Soria from Bloomsburg University. Soria was able to defeat Guillen in the first round by 6-0 and 6-4. Skander Mezouar was the next to compete in the singles for the Tigers as he was able to get a round 1 win against Filippo Buffo from Davis & Elkins. Skander Mezouar would take on Viktor Boban out of Frostburg State in the second round where Mezouar was able to win 6-3 to advance to the round of 16. Skander Mezouar would go onto defeat Ricardo Starosta in 3 sets to advance to the quarterfinals. After an impressive run, Skander Mezourar was defeated in the quarterfinals by Kihiro Karasawa out of West Virginia Wesleyan College. The Tigers third player to compete was Enrico Pucci who was defeated in round one by Cole Alacla out of Frostburg State University. The final competitor in the men's singles was Daniel Paipa who was defeated by Viktor Yanev from Davis & Elkins College.
 
The Tigers were able to have some success a lot of it coming from Skander Mezourar who went on an impressive run to the final 8 in the men's singles open. 

The men's team will look to build off this success as they prepare for the match up against Davis & Elkins on September 29^th.