Oct. 7, 2006
TULSA, Okla. - San Diego State seniors Markus Dickhardt (Marburg, Germany) and Christian Groh (Crailsheim, Germany) were forced to withdraw from their doubles main draw semifinals match with John Isner and Luis Flores of Georgia after Groh pulled a stomach muscle during a consolation singles match earlier in the day.
The day started out well for SDSU, as Groh won his quarterfinals match in the main draw consolation singles bracket to advance to the semifinals later in the day. Groh, No. 67 in the ITA preseason singles rankings, defeated No. 45 Nestor Briceno of Florida, 6-3, 7-6(2). Briceno was the third top-50 opponent that Groh has defeated in the consolation singles draw. Prior to his quarterfinals match today, Groh had defeated two opponents ranked within the top-40.
The Aztec senior would face No. 21 Stephen Bass of Notre Dame in the semifinals and drop the first set, 6-0. It was after the first set of his match with Bass that Groh was forced to retire. Groh is expected to be ready for the ITA West Regional.
Dickhardt and Groh were the first Aztec team to reach the semifinals at the All-American Championships. The former Aztec tandem of Ryan Redondo and Felix Hardt had reached the quarterfinals of the tournament in 2003.
In Albuquerque, N.M., senior Anthony Gomez (Palm Desert, Calif.), redshirt freshman Michael Beron (San Diego, Calif.), and freshman Achim Ceban were all in action at the UNM 2006 Balloon Fiesta Classic. SDSU won all of their singles matches today and has Ceban in the finals of the men's open singles "A" flight. Beron is in the singles "B" flight finals as well.
Ceban defeated Kamil Pajkowski of New Mexico, who was the No. 3 seed in the tournament, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, to move on to the semifinals where he would match up with No. 2 seed Peter Zimmer of Arizona. After dropping the first set, 3-6, Ceban showed great resilience in coming back to defeat Zimmer by taking the last two sets, 6-4, 6-0. Ceban will play No. 1 seed Graeme Kassautzki of New Mexico in the finals on Sunday. Kassautzki has won all three of his matches thus far in straight sets.
Gomez will be playing in the semifinals of the singles flight "A" consolation draw after two victories on Saturday. In his second match, Gomez dropped the first set to Brett Rodgers of Air Force, 3-6, but battled back to take the second set, 6-3. Rodgers was forced to retire after the second set due to illness.
Beron had one flight "B" singles match and was victorious over Jeff Pfeifer of New Mexico State, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Kyle Barrett of Northern Colorado and Beron will meet in the finals on Sunday.
As for the doubles twosome of Gomez and Ceban, they lost a closely contested quarterfinals match, 9-8, to Keith Cronican and James Tomlin of Air Force.