ROCK HILL, SC--The Winthrop men's and women's tennis teams opened their fall seasons this past weekend with the men participating in the UVA Fall Classic while the women competed in the 18th annual William and Mary Invitational.

A total of 21 schools participated at Virginia. Highlighting the men's performances were the doubles play of Liran Levy and Guy Kubi and Sergey Belov and  Yuta Hirokawa, and the singles play of Korokawa and Kubi.

Levy (Soph, Tel Aviv, Israel) and Kubi (Jr., Tiberias, Israel) captured their bracket in doubles by defeating the team of Fauchet/Dunbar of Richmond, 8-6.  Belov (Sr., Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia)  and Hirokawa (Fr., Niigata, Japan) won two of three doubles matches over the weekend while Hirokawa also captured three of four singles matches as did Kubi.

In the women's action at William and Mary, Winthrop junior Sandra Herrera (Lima, Peru) and sophomore Giovanna Portiolli (Curitiba, Brazil) teamed up to claim the B doubles flight as they defeated the top seeded team of Connie Hsu and Alexa Ely of Penn 9-8 (3). Portiolli also advanced to the semi-finals of her singles flight.  Herrera, senior Elizaveta Zaytseva (Ryazan, Russia) and sophomore Julia Breuss (Dornbirn, Austria) captured two singles matches each.