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Five Newcomers Complete Men’s Tennis Roster As Bulls Get Set For Action
9/8/2021 4:11:00 PM | Men's Tennis
BUFFALO, NY – The University at Buffalo men's tennis team will begin its 2021 fall season this weekend and the Bulls will have a brand new look with five new players joining the roster for the upcoming year.
Buffalo will head to Princeton, NJ for the South Orange Tennis Invitational where they will face opponents from Princeton, Penn, and Yale.
The Bulls return five players from last year's team including seniors Simon Wibler and Jonah Murphy. Also returning is junior Greg Hastings and sophomores Finn Macnamara and Tom Owen.
The newcomers come from all over the world and include true freshmen as well as a number of transfers.
Danils Snaiders is a freshman from Jurmala, Latvia where he was the number one player in the country in U18. He has a career high ITF ranking of 195 and is a two-time Latvian Championship winner. He is a member of the Latvian National Team.
Cheng "Rex" Tang is a freshman from Chaozhou Township in Taiwan. He was a junior Davis Cup member in 2019 and hit an ITF ranking of 239, which was his highest. He was a J3&J4 Doubles Runner-up and a two-time J4 singles semifinalist, while also reaching the semifinals of J5 singles. His highest UTR rating was 12.54.
Santiago Galan transfers to Buffalo from Purdue where he began his career. A native of Bucaramanga, Columbia, Galan was the Ohio Valley Region Rookie of the Year in 2019. He was the number one junior player in Columbia in U18 and won three ITF titles in singles and five in doubles, all while having an ITF ranking of 208. While at Purdue, he claimed a victory over Iowa, who was ranked 46th nationally at the time.
Another transfer joins the Bulls in Ryan Thompson, who comes to Buffalo after playing at Lafayette. A native of Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, Thompson was a staple in the Leopards lineup during the 2019-20 season.
Joining the Bulls in the spring will be Vasisht Cheruku from Mysore, India. Cheruku was an Indian junior national champion at both U16 and U18 and competed in the Australian Open Junior Tennis Championships. He has been ranked as high as 133 by the ITF and has had a UTR of 13.58. Cheruku also holds ATP rankings of 1419 in singles and 1065 in doubles.
"This is going to be an exciting time for our program!" said head coach Lee Nickell. "We have spent over a year working on recruiting these exceptional student-athletes, and it's obvious our work has paid off. We believe this class will mesh well with our returners while also bringing in a wealth of knowledge from their international experiences. We cannot wait to compete this Fall!"Gallery: (9-8-2021) 2021-22 Men's Tennis Newcomers
Buffalo will head to Princeton, NJ for the South Orange Tennis Invitational where they will face opponents from Princeton, Penn, and Yale.
The Bulls return five players from last year's team including seniors Simon Wibler and Jonah Murphy. Also returning is junior Greg Hastings and sophomores Finn Macnamara and Tom Owen.
The newcomers come from all over the world and include true freshmen as well as a number of transfers.
Danils Snaiders is a freshman from Jurmala, Latvia where he was the number one player in the country in U18. He has a career high ITF ranking of 195 and is a two-time Latvian Championship winner. He is a member of the Latvian National Team.
Cheng "Rex" Tang is a freshman from Chaozhou Township in Taiwan. He was a junior Davis Cup member in 2019 and hit an ITF ranking of 239, which was his highest. He was a J3&J4 Doubles Runner-up and a two-time J4 singles semifinalist, while also reaching the semifinals of J5 singles. His highest UTR rating was 12.54.
Santiago Galan transfers to Buffalo from Purdue where he began his career. A native of Bucaramanga, Columbia, Galan was the Ohio Valley Region Rookie of the Year in 2019. He was the number one junior player in Columbia in U18 and won three ITF titles in singles and five in doubles, all while having an ITF ranking of 208. While at Purdue, he claimed a victory over Iowa, who was ranked 46th nationally at the time.
Another transfer joins the Bulls in Ryan Thompson, who comes to Buffalo after playing at Lafayette. A native of Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, Thompson was a staple in the Leopards lineup during the 2019-20 season.
Joining the Bulls in the spring will be Vasisht Cheruku from Mysore, India. Cheruku was an Indian junior national champion at both U16 and U18 and competed in the Australian Open Junior Tennis Championships. He has been ranked as high as 133 by the ITF and has had a UTR of 13.58. Cheruku also holds ATP rankings of 1419 in singles and 1065 in doubles.
"This is going to be an exciting time for our program!" said head coach Lee Nickell. "We have spent over a year working on recruiting these exceptional student-athletes, and it's obvious our work has paid off. We believe this class will mesh well with our returners while also bringing in a wealth of knowledge from their international experiences. We cannot wait to compete this Fall!"
Players Mentioned
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