Oct. 18, 2013
SINGLES BRACKET | DOUBLES BRACKET
MALIBU, Calif. - Three San Diego State men's tennis players advanced to the third round of singles play of the USTA/ITA Southwest Regional Championship on Friday in Malibu, Calif.
Senior Juan Florez (Bogota, Columbia), No. 114-ranked junior Thorsten Bertsch (Mannheim, Germany) and freshman Milen Ianakiev (Elz, Germany) each moved on to the round of 32, which begins on Saturday. Florez topped UC Santa Barbara's Miles Seemann, 6-3, 6-3, in first round action, before knocking off UC Irvine's Jonathan Hammel, 7-5, 6-2, in the second round. Florez will take on No. 2-seed Yannick Hanfmann of USC in the third round.
Bertsch received a bye in the first round before going on to beat UCSB's Teague Hamilton, 6-1, 6-1 in the second round. He will face Pepperdine's Stefan Menichella in the third round on Saturday. Ianakiev also drew a first-round bye, then defeated UC Irvine's Ryan Cheung in three sets, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, to advance to Saturday's third-round match against No. 6-seed Dennis Mkrtchian of UCLA.
Junior Andranik Khachatryan (Burbank, Calif.) knocked off Grand Canyon's Arjun Bal in the first round, 7-6 (4), 6-3, but fell to Nils Schuhmann of Hawai'i, 7-5, 6-0, in second-round play.
Senior Hunter Nicholas, sophomore Freddy Gelbrich (Isernhagen, Germany), freshman Jonas Meinzer (Buggingen, Germany) and freshman Hendrik Jebens (Stutgart, Germany) each received first-round byes on Friday, but lost in second-round action. Nicholas lost to UCSB's Tobias Galskov, 6-0, 6-3, Gelbrich fell to No. 8-seed Ray Sarmiento of USC, 6-3, 6-2, Meinzer lost to San Diego's Andrew Raphaelson, 6-7, 6-4, 6-2, and Jebens dropped his match to Alex Sarkissian of Pepperdine, 6-1, 6-2.
In the doubles bracket, San Diego State's doubles team of Gelbrich and Khachatryan topped Danilo Casanova and Chas Okamoto of Hawai'I, 8-6, in the first round on Friday. They'll take on UCSB's team of Teague Hamilton and Erik Johnson on Saturday.
In addition, three other SDSU doubles teams will compete in second-round action on Saturday after receiving first-round byes on Friday. The Aztecs' team of Bertsch and Nicholas will take on Chris Meyer and David Schuster of Hawai'i, Florez and Ianakiev will face UCI's duo of Ryan Cheung and Jonathan Hammel, while Jebens and Meinzer will play Cal Poly's team of Devin Barber and Corey Pang.