Oct. 19, 2013
SINGLES BRACKET | DOUBLES BRACKET | CONSOLATION BRACKET
MALIBU, Calif. - San Diego State junior men's tennis player Thorsten Bertsch (Mannheim, Germany) advanced to the quarterfinal round of the USTA/ITA Southwest Regional Championship on Saturday, winning two singles matches.
Bertsch, ranked No. 114 in the nation, edged Pepperdine's Stefan Menichella, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, in a three-set thriller in the round of 32, before knocking off USC's Michael Grant, 6-2, 6-0, in the round of 16. Bertsch will face Pepperdine's Alex Sarkissian on Sunday, beginning at 11 a.m. PT.
The Aztecs doubles team of Bersch and junior Hunter Nicholas (Park City, Utah) also advanced in the doubles draw round of 32, knocking off the Hawai'i team of David Schuster/Chris Meyer, 8-1. The SDSU duo continues play on Sunday in the round of 16 against USC's unit of Robbie Bellamy/Johnny Wang, beginning at 9 a.m.
Senior Juan Florez (Bogota, Columbia) dropped his match in the round of 32 to USC's Yannick Hanfmann, 6-0, 6-2, while freshman Milen Ianakiev (Elz, Germany) fell short to UCLA's Dennis Mkrtchian, 6-4, 6-4.
In the consolation singles draw, Nicholas topped Grand Canyon's Alex Roggenkamp, 6-1, 6-7, 10-3, before going on to defeat Chas Okamoto of Hawai'i, 6-2, 6-3. Freshman Hendrik Jebens (Stuttgart, Germany) defeated UC Santa Barbara's Luke Steeb, 6-0, 6-4, while sophomore Freddy Gelbrich (Isernhagen, Germany) dropped his consolation draw match to UCSB' Ziad Sultan, 6-1, 7-6.
SDSU's doubles team of Florez and Ianakiev dropped its match in the round of 32 to UC Irvine's team of Cheung/Hammel, 8-6, while the Aztecs team of Jebens and freshman Jonas Meinzer (Buggingen, Germany) lost to Cal Poly's team of Bevin Barber/Corey Pang, 8-7. In addition, the San Diego State team of Gelbrich and junior Andranik Khachatryan (Burbank, Calif.) fell short against UCSB's team of Teague Hamilton/Erik Johnsson, 8-3.