The Binghamton men’s tennis team opened up its 2007 preseason with a solid showing at the Virginia Invitational this past weekend.

Junior transfer Sebastian Dietz was the most impressive of all the Bearcats, finishing as the runner-up in the ‘Green’ bracket in his Binghamton debut. Dietz’s strong run included upsetting the bracket’s top seeded player, Benny Althaus of Denver. The German import seemed to run out of gas a bit in his fourth match, the finals against second seeded Paul Koenke of Boise State. However, head coach Adam Cohen was still impressed with his recruit’s effort saying that Dietz showed this past weekend why ‘he should be one of our top guys.’

Another newcomer, Swedish freshman Andreas Danielsson, showed a great deal of tenacity as he bounced back from an opening round loss to win a consolation bracket match. Also victorious was senior captain Faisal Mohamed who won his opening round match before going down in the second round.

The invitational was the first of seven preseason exhibitions the Bearcats are scheduled to play in this fall and Cohen seemed impressed by what he saw from his team in the opening weekend. He pointed out the importance of these exhibitions by saying, ‘They’re good preparation for the season and give us exposure to teams we normally don’t see.’

The Bearcats are coming off a bit of a disappointing season where they finished third in the America East. Dreadful doubles play helped contribute to the sub-.500 record last season and coach Cohen has acknowledged the team is concentrating very hard on improving in that area. Cohen is experimenting with different teams and said, ‘The fall is for finding guys who work together.’

The only pairing that remains intact from last season is Mohamed and Alex Dobrin, who is limited in what he can do this preseason as he recovers from a shoulder injury.

In addition to Dietz and Danielsson, the team will feature two other new recruits this upcoming season: Sven Vloedgraven, a freshman from the Netherlands, and Evan Algier from Poughkeepsie. Cohen has stated that he is looking forward to working with the new players and that they have gelled well with the team. It is unclear this early in the preseason what their exact roles will be on the team but coach Cohen noted one of their most important roles is ‘working hard everyday and competing with and pushing the leftover guys to make them better.’

The Bearcats will next play this weekend at the Princeton Invitational in New Jersey.