Flushing, N.Y. - A stellar collegiate debut for Marko Jovanovic headlined the weekend for the Adelphi University men's tennis team at the 2021 ITA East Region Championships at the famed USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing.

With the drapes of U.S. Open signage still hovering across the complex and individual courts, Jovanovic won each of his first three singles matches in straight sets and advanced to the quarterfinal round in his first-ever ITA's appearance.

Seeded No. 13 in the draw, Jovanovic opened tournament play with a 6-1, 6-0 rout of Stonehill's Luke Nickerson. He followed that up with straight-set results over STAC's Julius Upel (6-2, 6-3) and Queens' Moritz Borges (6-2, 6-1), before dropping a 6-3, 6-1 decision to the No. 10 seeded player and eventual finalist, Jonathan Berling of SNHU, in the quarterfinals.

A pair of newcomers made waves for the Panthers in the doubles draw.

The unseeded team of Thiago Negrao and Thomas Horsley won an exciting 8-5 match against STAC's Ivan Laiz and Slobodan Cejovic in their opener. The first-time doubles pair fell a round shy of the quarterfinals though, after a hard-fought 8-5 loss to Queens' Moritz Borges and Lucas Demuth.

Reece Farrow, who also appeared in his first collegiate match over the weekend, teamed up with Valentin Le Goupil-Maier in doubles and prevailed in their first match, 8-5, over Assumption's Max Francis and Brandon Sze.

Luke Attride-Stirling, Salomon Arce Lema and Gabriel Balestero all played singles, but dropped their opening matches. Balestero split the first two sets with SNHU's Boris Stastny and came out on the short end of a nailbiting 12-10 result in the third.

The Adelphi men's tennis team will play a couple of matches this fall and is set to meet Farmingdale State College in its first dual of the 2021-22 season next Monday (Sept. 27) at 4 p.m. in Farmingdale.