Rola Advances To Second Round At Binghamton Challenger

Blaz Rola

BINGHAMTON, July 25, 2017

A pair of rain delays marred action on Monday at the 24th Levene Gouldin & Thompson Tennis Challenger. Binghamton’s Recreation Park saw three complete matches before thunderstorms suspended play. With efficient work from tournament volunteers, courts were dried and playable to resume prior matches. The final two matches of the day, however, were cancelled and moved to tomorrow.

Starting the day on Center Court, lefty-duo Cameron Norrie from Great Britain and Alex Rybakov from the United States paired up against US-American tandem of John Lamble and Evan Song. Norrie and Rybakov defeated Lamble and Song in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3. Both Lamble and Song competed in yesterday’s singles qualifying round, as Song moved into the main draw with a victory over Connor Farren. Lamble was knocked out by second-seeded Eric Quigley.

In other doubles action, the US-American-duo of Denis Kudla and Daniel Nguyen are advancing after winning two tiebreaker sets against Dekel Bar of Israel and Ramkumar Ramanathan from India. The pair took both sets 7-6, winning the first set tiebreaker 7-5 before battling for an 11-9 win in the second set tiebreaker.

US-Americans Robert Galloway and Alex Lawson started their match against Australian double Jarryd Chaplin and Luke Saville before impending weather halted the match. When play resumed, US-Americans Galloway and Lawson won the first set in tiebreaker 7-6 (5). The second set went back and forth, before Chaplin and Saville grabbed a lead and won 7-5. In a ten point tiebreaker third set, Chaplin and Saville outplayed Galloway and Lawson, winning 10-4 to advance in the doubles bracket.

Main Draw Singles Action Gets Underway

In the singles competition, two out of four scheduled matches were completed on Monay. Two main draw matches have been postponed to Tuesday, as contests between Christian Harrison and Eric Quigley and Michael Mmoh and Marcus Giron were both pushed back due to weather.

Eighth-seeded Slovenian Blaz Rola faced US-American wild card selection JC Aragone in the first singles match of the day at Recreation Park. Rola took the first set from Aragone 6-4. He jumped to an early 3-1 lead in the second set, before Aragone won four straight games to take a 5-3 game lead. Tied at six, Rola and Aragone faced off in tiebreaker, where Rola held off Aragone, 7-2.

Alex Bolt from Australia and Edan Leshem of Israel competed in the last match of the day on center court, resuming play in the second set after the rain delay. Bolt won in straight-sets 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the second round, facing Blaz Rola next.