In its first major action of the 2016-17 school year, the Washington University men’s tennis team posted a series of strong performances at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Regional this weekend. Runs by junior Johnny Wu and senior John Carswell—who made the quarterfinals in singles—and the pairing of junior Jason Haugen and sophomore Konrad Kozlowski—who reached the semifinals in the doubles tournament—highlighted the Bears’ weekend.

The tournament, held at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Mich., featured some of the strongest competition in the Midwest, particularly from Wash. U’s conference rival, the University of Chicago. The Maroons ended last season ranked No. 8 in the country to Wash. U.’s No. 6 billing, but in Kalamazoo, Chicago won the doubles title and advanced two athletes to the singles final. The Bears, however, did manage several positive results against Maroons, most notably Haugen and Kozlowski’s 8-5 quarterfinal win against top-seeded David Liu and Nicolas Chua.

Tournament play started with singles matches on Friday, but competition was delayed significantly due to rain. Once the weather cleared, play resumed with a number of Bears winning their opening rounds and making it through to the second day of singles competition on Saturday.

Kozlowski, Carswell, Wu and freshman Bernardo Neves all advanced into the Round of 16 on Saturday. Junior Shaun Berman also advanced into the Round of 16 by first grinding out an upset win over the No. 17 seeded player from Kenyon College, 6-4, 0-6, 10-6 in the round of 128.

However, for all the Wash. U. players—but Wu and Carswell—the singles runs would end there.

No. 4 seeded Carswell had a comfortable run to the Round of 16, winning each of his first three matches in straight sets. He faced a much tougher match in the fourth round, as he earned a comeback victory against the No. 9 seeded player from Chicago. After narrowly dropping the first set 6-7(6), Carswell stormed back, comprehensively winning the second and third 6-1, 6-2.

Wu also had a relatively easy time of it in his first two rounds, winning 6-2, 6-0 and then 6-1, 6-0. He was in for a bit more of a battle in his third match as he took three sets to beat Sam Concannon of UAA rival Case Western Reserve University, 6-4, 5-7, 6-2. Wu also came up against a Chicago player in his round of 16 match, posting a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Ninan Kumar.

Both Carswell and Wu dropped their quarterfinal matches in straight sets against Chicago players. Carswell fell 6-3, 6-4 to eighth-seeded David Liu, who would then beat the tournament number one seed en-route to the final. Wu lost his quarterfinal matchup 6-3, 6-1 to two-time reigning regional singles champion Nicolas Chua.

Because of the rain on Friday, the majority of the double competition did not pick up until Saturday morning. Wash. U. also had several runs into the Round of 16. In the first round, the pairing of Neves and Wu scraped through with a narrow 9-8 upset victory over the number four seeded pairing from Rose-Hulman. They then coasted to a comfortable 8-2 victory over a team from Wheaton before coming up on the wrong side of a 9-8 heartbreaker in the round of 16 to Erik Kerrigan and Ninan Kumar of Chicago.

Senior Jeremy Bush and freshman J.J. Kroot also had a successful run into the third round. The duo started off their run with an 8-3 victory against Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and followed that up with an 8-5 defeat of the number 9-seeded pairing from Earlham College. In the round of sixteen, they squared off against the number 2 seed, a hometown pairing from Kalamazoo College, and lost 8-6.

The Red and Green’s most successful pairing, however, was that of Haugen and Kozlowski. The duo entered the tournament seeded 9th, and made quick work of their first opponents, posting an 8-2 win over a team from Kenyon College. In the next round they put up a comfortable 8-3 victory over a Trine University duo, before winning their Round of 16 match 8-5 against the fifth seed from Augustana College. They then advanced to the quarters where they dispatched Chua and Liu, the reigning regional doubles champions. Haugen and Kozlowski posted a 10-7 record together last season splitting time between first and second doubles. In the semis, they came up against the same Chicago team that had knocked off Wu and Neves. Haugen and Kozlowski met the same fate as their teammates, eventually falling 8-4.

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regionals were the Bears’ final competitive event of the fall and they will resume play next semester. Their first matchup of the spring will be against Division II Drury University in February.