The College of Staten Island tennis program celebrated a first in their history, welcoming back alumni for its inaugural Alumni Match, used to kick off its regular season contest against Lehman College.  A total of eight alumni came to the event, and paired up with current players for exciting doubles and singles action.  It was a windy and chilly afternoon, but it did not stop all from having a great time while supporting the men’s and women’s programs.

“It was great to see some old faces back on campus,” said CSI Head Coach Arthur Kapetanakis, who helped organize the event with CSI Intramurals Director Sal Caruso.  “We had a terrific turnout, a lot of fun, and close matches to boot.” 

Indeed, the alumni mixed with current played formed two groups of seven players each.  They played three doubles matches and one singles match.  True to form the teams split those matches, 2-2, so each team nominated one player to play a winner-take-all seven point tie-break.  Alum Georgio Danio ’11 got the win to clinch the victory.

After the match, raffles were awarded containing great gifts from the CSI athletics program and men’s tennis team.

“We plan to make this an annual spring tradition here at CSI,” said Kapetanakis.  “This was the first official alumni match since I’ve been running the tennis program and I was very happy with how it went.”

Alumni that attended and the match were:  Tom Pack, Patrick Thomas, Georgio Dano, Joe Taranto, Robert Hargraves,Ed Ruffe, Anton Vilinskiy, and Daniel Ursomanno.