SAN ANTONIO – The #17 Trinity University men's tennis team concluded its Trinity Fall Invitational on Saturday, kicking off the 2026-27 season.
The tournament was shortened due to lightning and rain throughout most of the day on Friday, though teams were able to get in some matches at night. That meant that the five flights of singles and three flights of doubles were unfinished by the end of the day on Saturday. The Tigers had at least one player in three of the five singles flights, as well as having at least one team in two of the three doubles finals.
Kishan Kersten (Plano, Texas / West) and
Jared Perry (Tucson, Ariz. / Catalina Foothills) swept to the finals of Flight 1 singles. Perry won in straight sets in both of his matches, defeating David Simecek of Our Lady of the Lake University 6-2, 6-1 before taking down Lucas Castillo-Sanchez of St. Mary's University 6-1, 6-3. Kersten won easily in his opening match by defeating Texas Wesleyan's William Bayliss 6-1, 6-1, but was taken to a third set tiebreaker against Santiago Flyckt of Incarnate Word. Kersten lost the opening set 6-3 but rallied to win 6-2 and 1-0 (10-6) to reach the final.
Fabio Di Loreto (The Woodlands, Texas / The Woodlands) won in three sets twice to reach the Flight 2 final, rallying after losing the first set 6-1 in both of his matches. He came back with a 6-3 win against Eliott Costa of OLLU to start his weekend, clinching the victory with an 11-9 win in the third set. Di Loreto then knocked off Rafael Candelas Ruiz of UIW with a 6-1 win in the second set and a 10-4 tiebreaker in the third.
Roshin Kamath (League City, Texas / Clear Springs) came up short in a bid to join Di Loreto in the final, winning 6-3, 6-4 over Alejo Zurmendi of Texas Wesleyan to start the weekend; but falling short in a 10-5 third-set tiebreaker. Kamath won the opening set 6-4 before dropping the second 6-2 to set up the tiebreaker.
Brodie Keller (Sacramento, Calif. / School for the Talented and Gifted) and
Kartick Gusain (Cambridge, Ontario (Canada) / Ontario Virtual) made it an all-Trinity final by winning both of their matches this weekend. Keller began with a 6-0, 3-6, 1-0 (11-9) win over UIW's Alexandre Chauvel Gobin, then took out Nikita Gavrilonoks of St. Mary's in straight sets at 6-2, 6-2. Gusain had a pair of narrow victories with multiple tiebreakers. He began with a 7-6 (10-8), 6-7 (5-7), 1-0 (11-9) win over Lincoln Baldonado of St. Mary's in an extremely tight match. Gusain followed that performance with a 4-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-7) win over Carlos Mendoza Hernandez of UIW to join his teammate in the Flight 3 final.
Ethan Flores (Houston, Texas / Clear Lake) won 6-0, 7-5 over Alex Capilla of Texas Wesleyan, but came up short in a 6-2, 6-4 loss to UIW's Ian Uraga in Flight 4 singles. After a narrow 7-5 loss to start the tournament,
Ivan Nikolovski (Alpine, N.J. / Dwight Global) rallied with a 6-2 win in the second set to force a tiebreaker; however, he came up short in a 10-7 loss to OLLU's Pietro Guimaraes. Flight 5 singles featured
Ethan Ruppanner (Amarillo, Texas / Tascosa) and he wound up splitting his two matches. Ruppanner won 6-2, 6-4 over Texas Wesleyan's Ahmed El Kassas in his first match, then lost 6-2, 0-6, 0-1 (7-10) to Caleb Olen of OLLU.
Flight 1 doubles wound up as an all-Trinity final as Kersten/Perry defeated OLLU's Simecek/Costa 8-5 to start, then then took down Monteverde/Gobin from UIW 8-1 in the semifinals. Flores/Kamath had a couple of close wins to meet their teammates in the final, defeating Flyckt/Hernandes from UIW in a tiebreaker 8-7 (7-5), then winning 8-6 over Zurmendi/Mccashin from Texas Wesleyan.
Di Loreto and Gusain teamed up in Flight 2 doubles, opening with an 8-2 win over Olen/Danzic from OLLU. The Tiger duo was unable to reach the final, though, after falling in an 8-5 decision to Miralles/Salazar from UIW. Keller and
T.J. Shanahan (Oklahoma City, Okla. / Bishop McGuinness) were also in Flight 2 but lost their opener 8-6 against Texas Wesleyan's Bayliss/Woods. Ruppanner and Nikolovski won 8-6 in Flight 3 against OLLU's Arzate/Guimaraes, then Gavrilonoks/Eriksson of St. Mary's defaulted the next match due to injury to put the Trinity team through to the final.
Up Next
Trinity will head to Abilene, Texas, for the ITA Regional Singles and Doubles Championships, which will be hosted by Hardin-Simmons University (TX) October 1-4. The singles and doubles champions will advance to the ITA Cup, held October 15-18 in Rome, Ga.
