The Cyclone Tennis team enjoyed some significant doubles success, as well as some good singles play in day one of the Gopher Invitational.

The Cyclones fielded five doubles teams and started off hot. All five pairs won their matches starting with Bender/Toledo defeating Dekkinga/Montgomerie from South Dakota State, 6-2.

The rest of the teams followed suit, rattling off win after win to a first round sweep.

The second round proved to be a much more difficult test. The Cyclones kept the hot streak alive with two wins from the teams of Buss/Gasparovic, who defeated Safdar/Vujic from Minnesota 7-6, and Espindola/Galvis, who beat Sprinkel/Yunker from North Dakota 6-3.

The rest of the round didn’t go as planned when the Cyclones dropped three straight to end the day. This came as a surprise, considering two of the losses were from some of the most experienced players in the pairings of Phippen/Kuuttila and Budai/Bonadonna.

The Cyclones also brought some good play to the singles tournaments. The team went a combined 12-8, but had some players really step up. Two freshmen, Liera Bender and Annabella Bonadonna went 2-0 in their singles debuts, accounting for 1/3 of the teams wins alone.

The Cyclones will start fresh Saturday at 9 a.m. with round two of the Gopher Invitational. They will be given the chance to redraw their doubles pairings, and try to duplicate their success with new teams.