Jan. 25, 2015
LOGAN, Utah - The No. 70 San Diego State men's tennis team fell short in a back-and-forth, hard-fought road match against Utah State, 4-3, on Sunday afternoon in the Mountain West opener for both teams.
SDSU (2-1, 0-1 MW) began the day strong by winning the doubles point to start the match. The Aztecs No. 3 team of seniors Thorsten Bertsch (Mannheim, Germany) and Andranik Khachatryan (Burbank, Calif.) topped USU's unit of Karan Salwan and Jaime Barajas, 6-2, before SDSU's No. 2 duo of sophomore Marko Goles-Babic (Zagreb, Croatia) and freshman Santiago Cevallos (Querétaro, Mexico) lost to Matt Sweet and Jack Swindells, 6-3.
But in the deciding doubles match, San Diego State's No. 1 team of junior Freddy Gelbrich (Isernhagen, Germany) and sophomore Hendrik Jebens (Stuttgart, Germany) narrowly knocked off Dennis Baumgartner and Marcus Fritz, 7-6, to clinch the doubles point.
In singles action, SDSU sophomore Milen Ianakiev (Elz, Germany) dropped his match on the No. 4 court to Salwan, 6-2, 7-5, before Goles-Babic put the Aztecs back ahead with No. 3 singles victory over Fritz, 6-3, 7-6 (5). Gelbrich fell short on the No. 2 court to Baumgartner, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, but Bertsch defeated Swindells on the No. 1 singles court, 7-5, 6-3, to make the score, 3-2, and bring the Aztecs within one point of winning the dual match.
However, Cevallos dropped his No. 6 singles match to Sebastian Schneider, 6-2, 6-0, and Jebens came up short against Barajas on the No. 5 court, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (6), to complete the comeback and clinch the dual-match victory for Utah State (6-0, 1-0).
San Diego State returns home to resume dual play against Cal Poly on Friday, Jan. 30, beginning at 1 p.m. PT at Aztec Tennis Center.