Sacramento State men’s tennis standout Kiryl Harbatsiuk made school history by becoming the first Hornet tennis player to make to the quarterfinals of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Indoor Tennis Championships in Flushing, New York on Nov. 4-7

Harbatsiuk was among the 32 best players in the nation who earned the trip to the championship by way of their regional tournaments. In the first round, the lone representative for Sac State defeated the No. 4-ranked player in the nation-Georgia Tech University’s Guillermo Gomez, two sets to one. Harbatsiuk dropped the first set to Gomez 6-3, but rallied back in the next two sets going 7-5 and 6-4 respectively.

The win moved him into the top-16 where he drew Vanderbilt University’s Ryan Lipman, who is the 20th-ranked player in the nation.

Harbatsiuk who is the 75th-ranked player in nation, is the highest ranked Sac State athlete to compete in the Nationals in school history.

In the match with Lipman, Harbatsiuk defeated the Commodre (6-4, 7-6 and 6-3) to advance to the quarterfinals and face the No. 21-ranked player in nation in Rhyne Williams of Tennessee University.

In the match, Harbatsiuk would drop the first set 6-4 to Williams to go down one set to none early. He would come back and take the second set 6-2 to draw the match to even. However, this would not be enough as the Hornet could not overcome mistakes to the Volunteer and would drop the third and final set 6-3 – ending his run for the national indoor title.

Assistant coach Kevin Kurts said Harbatsiuk played his hardest to the very end.

“He played a really gutsy match with Williams. Kiryl stayed around and didn’t give up in the third set,” Kurts said. “It was an awesome match. It was a great tournament for him.”

The road to the Nationals for the Belarus native went through Stanford University as Harbatsiuk made history on Oct. 19 when he became the first Hornet ever to win the ITA Northwest Regional Championships singles title.

With the singles title, the senior earned the automatic berth that would take him to the ITA National Indoor Tennis Championships.

“In the last two days of the tournament, he played two back-to-back matches one day and then on the last day he played two more. Each match is about three hours, so he played a lot of tennis in a short amount of time,” Kurtz said.

Harbatsiuk had to play six matches for the title and did not drop a match. On the final day of the Northwest Regional Championship, he faced UC Berkeley’s Christoffer Konigsfeldt for the title.

He won the first set against the Golden Bear 6-4, before dropping the second set 6-4 and recovering to win the third 6-3.

Harbatsiuk said he had to use all of his reserves just to compete in four matches in a 48-hour time span to edge out his opponent.

“I don’t know where all that energy came from. I think I just wanted to win more than they did,” Harbatsiuk said. “I am not fond of losing and was trying my hardest to win every match I played in.”

Harbatsiuk said he put in a lot of time into tennis so that he could have a chance to compete against the best in the region.

“I have done a lot of hard work to get to here and it has paid off. I felt great winning and it brought out of me a lot positive emotions,” Harbatsiuk said.

After playing 10 matches in two weeks, he went 6-0 in the regionals and 3-1 in the nationals.

“He treated every match really professionally. I feel this is a testament to where he is right now because of his determination and hard work,” Kurts said. “He is willing to play tournaments and travel to get used to playing at the next level. This summer he played a lot of pro tennis tournaments. He had some great results and getting that kind of experience at the next level helped him when he came back to play college tennis.”

Matt Harrington can be reached at [email protected]