Oct. 17, 2014 MALIBU, Calif. - Five San Diego State men's tennis players advanced to the singles main draw Round of 32 by earning victories in the first day of the USTA/ITA Southwest Regional Championships on Friday at Pepperdine University's Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center. Complete results can be seen here.
Senior and 122nd-ranked Thorsten Bertsch (Mannheim, Germany), as well as sophomores Hendrik Jebens (Stuttgart, Germany), Marko Goles-Babic (Zagreb, Croatia), Jonas Meinzer (Buggingen, Germany) and Milen Ianakiev (Elz, Germany) each moved on in the singles main draw, which resumes on Saturday afternoon. In addition, the Aztecs' doubles team of Bertsch and Goles-Babic also moved on to Saturday morning's Round of 32.
Jebens had the most impressive victory of the day, knocking off 67th-ranked Karue Sell of UCLA, 6-2, 6-4, in the Round of 64, after beginning the tournament with a win over Cal Poly's Naveen Beasley, 6-3, 6-3.
Bertsch, the No. 8-seed in this weekend's tournament, received a first-round bye before defeating Cal Poly's Axel Damiens, 6-1, 6-2, in his only singles match on Friday. Meinzer also earned a first-round bye to begin the tournament, before defeating Arizona's David Mushayev in three sets, 6-2, 1-6, 6-3.
Goles-Babic started the day by knocking off UCLA's Michael Guzman in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1, before University of San Diego's Jordan Angus retired due to injury in the Round of 64. In addition, Ianakiev moved past USC's David Laser, 6-2, 6-2, in his first match of the day, then took down Cal Poly's Lucas Lexouer, 6-1, 6-1, in the Round of 64.
Meanwhile in the Round of 128, Aztec junior Freddy Gelbrich (Isernhagen, Germany) dropped his match to UCLA's Ryoto Tachi, 6-4, 6-3, sophomore Maxi Boewer-Stelter (Berlin, Germany) fell short against Arizona's Matt Dunn, 6-1, 6-3, and freshman Santiago Cevallos was topped by UC Irvine's Nico Mertens, 6-2, 6-3.
In doubles action, Bertsch and Goles-Babic earned a Round-of-64 victory over Cal Poly's duo of Devin Barber and Corey Pang, 8-4, while SDSU unit of Meinzer and Ianakiev came up short against USD's Alex Araouzos and Romain Kalaydjian, 8-1.
Doubles play starts up on Saturday morning beginning at 9 a.m. PT, while singles main-draw action resumes at 2 p.m. PT.