NCAA SINGLES BRACKET  I  NCAA DOUBLES BRACKET

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Kenyon College senior Sam Geier and junior Tristan Kaye put together a perfect Thursday run, as the two went undefeated in NCAA singles and doubles championship play, assured themselves of All-America status and advanced to the quarterfinal rounds in each of the two national tournaments.

Geier got the day started with singles play at Sorensen Courts. His first-round match was against Anton Zykov of Amherst College. Geier, the overall No. 2 seed in the singles championship, rolled to a first set 6-2 win. He moved ahead 4-1 in the second set before Zykov answered the wake-up call and forged ahead to knot the match at 5-5. Geier, however, held serve and then polished off Zykov by a final 6-2, 7-5 count.

That win launched Geier into the second round of the 32-player, single elimination tournament. Play moved over to Stowe Stadium, where the next opponent was Avery Schober of Sewanee, who cruised to 6-0, 6-0 win in his first-round match. Geier jumped all over Schober with a 6-1 victory in the first set. Schober then turned the tables and took the second set by the same 6-1 score. The lopsided results continued in the third set, but swung back in favor of Geier, who closed out the match with 6-0 third set.


With just eight players left in the singles championship, Geier's competition only gets tougher. Friday at 9 a.m., he'll take on Abhishek Alla of Carnegie Mellon University. Alla did not garner one of the tournament's top seeds, but he'll enter the match with an 18-15 record. One of those wins came at the expense of Geier, who was defeated on Alla's home court 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-3) back on April 3.

That was the last time Geier lost a match. He's won 12 straight since then and currently owns a 27-4 singles mark for the season.

The long day was not quite over for Geier. Late in the afternoon, he paired up with Kaye to begin their first-round match in the 16-team doubles championship. They went up against Skidmore College's pairing of Kai Yuen Leung and Nick Tong.

The Skidmore team jumped out to early leads of 2-1 and 3-2, but Geier and Kaye pulled things together and rattled off seven straight games, taking set one, 6-3, and moving ahead in set two with a 3-0 advantage. From there, it went back and forth. Leung and Tong took the next four games to go ahead 4-3, but Kenyon answered back with two of its own to reclaim the lead at 5-4. Geier and Kaye then notched that final game and wrapped up the 6-3, 6-4 victory.

The Kenyon duo, which is now 20-10 this season, advances to Friday's 3 p.m. quarterfinal to take on the No. 3-seeded team of Skyler Butts and Daniel Morkovine of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.