MADISON, NJ – It was a banner day for the University of Rochester men's tennis team on the opening day of play at the ITA Northeast Regional Championships hosted at Drew University on Friday.
 
Graduate student Kai Yuminaga stunned the entire field, upsetting the tournament's top-seeded player, Aiden Drover-Mattinen of Rensselaer, in the opening match of the tournament.
 
Drover-Mattinen, the events two-time defending champion and Division III's nationally ranked #16 singles player, started out fast, earning a 3-0 lead. Yuminaga trailed by as much as 1-4 before rattling off five straight game wins to surge head 6-4, eventually leading to an 8-5 victory.
 
Not to be outdone, Yuminaga again pulled another upset, this time with teammate Ethan Samora in the doubles first round competition. UR's combo upended Nika Mori and Yuval Goodman of Skidmore 8-4, the doubles bracket's 3/4 seeded team.
 
Both of UR's doubles teams emerged victorious in the first round, with Krish Vennam and Josh Chu earning an 8-3 victory over Mehul Bhargaval and Mikah Liu of Pratt Institute.
 
Joining Yuminaga among the singles main draw winners was sophomore Kavin Shukla who posted a nail-biting 8-7 (7-3) win over Achillias Kousardias of Hobart College. Shukla's win avenged an 8-4 loss to Kousaridis in the B Flight singles final at the SLU Fall Classic earlier this season.
 
Additionally, Rochester's Vennam and Rahul Ravi were upended in their opening round matches in singles play. Vennam, a 9/16 seeded player in the field, matched up with Rumaish Khastgir of UR's conference rival NYU in the opening round, with Khastgir posting an 8-3 victory.
 
Meanwhile, Ravi was drawn against 5/8 seeded Andy Zhu of RPI, with the Yellowjacket sophomore falling by an 8-2 score.
 
In the doubles round of 16, Vennam and Chu will look to knock out the doubles bracket's top seeded team from TCNJ, while Yuminaga and Samora square off with a team from Vassar for a spot in the quarterfinals.
 
During Saturday's singles play, Yuminaga will play Tuna Nergizoglu of Baruch in the second round, with Shukla battling Okada Tsbasa of RPI.
 
Heavy rains in the New Jersey area forced play inside and the tournament to begin play with 8-game pro-sets, instead of traditional scoring matches for singles. Only one round of each singles and doubles play was contested on Friday's opening day of play.