Sebastian Dietz and Moshe Levy are not chemistry majors, but this weekend they certainly showed they have it as both athletes played very well together for the Binghamton men’s tennis team at the Virginia State Open. In addition to having great individual weekends, the doubles partners won their first-round match.

Dietz especially showed why he is expected to be a star, as the new recruit looked very impressive on the court. After losing the nail-biting first set in his opening round match 6-7, he bounced back to advance by dismantling Longwood’s David Cardoso 6-1, 6-1 in the next two sets. Dietz then clawed his way to a second round victory over Radford’s Mehdi Benhammou, a man who at one point last season won 22 consecutive matches. The impressive ride through the A-2 Singles bracket ended for Dietz in the semi-finals as he lost to eventual winner, Damien Lacombe of VCU.

Head coach Adam Cohen was especially enthused with the German transfer’s effort since it came on the heels of Dietz’s mediocre singles play the weekend before. He especially noted the fact that Dietz defeated the talented Radford player and that his loss came to the eventual champion.

‘It was good to see Sebastian come back ‘ it was encouraging,’ Cohen said.

Cohen also got a solid performance out of Levy. The second year player from Israel, who spent much of last season fighting injuries, battled third seeded Emil Lindgren of VCU for three tense sets before going down in the opening round. He quickly bounced back to defeat William & Mary sophomore Richard Wardell in a consolation bracket match before being eliminated.

‘He played at a good level especially since not playing competitively since April,’ Cohen said.

Levy was 15-10 as a singles player last season and became a second team America East all-star at third doubles. His consistency on the court comes as no real surprise, as he was ranked Israel’s No. 1 boy’s tennis player before coming to Binghamton.

The coach expects Levy to not only be fully healthy by the time the regular season begins in January, but also to again be a major contributor to the Bearcats program.

‘I totally expect him to play in top six singles and he will definitely be on one of our three doubles teams,’ Cohen said.

Together, Dietz and Levy defeated Liberty 8-3 in the opening round, but the second round was not as kind to the Bearcat pair, as they bowed out to the William & Mary tandem of Marwan Ramadan and Varun Pandit.

The Bearcats will not compete again until Oct. 13 when they compete at the Army Invitational. However, they will be on the courts of the West Gym this Sunday, hosting a community clinic from 9 a.m. to noon.