Oct. 16, 2015
MALIBU, Calif. - Six San Diego State men's tennis players advanced to the Round of 32 at the 2015 USTA/ITA Southwest Regional Championships after posting dominating victories at their tournament debut on Thursday. Complete results and updated draws can be found at http://gowav.es/1LPcBKR.
Freddy Gelbrich, Marko Goles-Babic, Hendrik Jebens and Milen Ianakiev moved on to the singles Round of 32, while a victory by the doubles tandem of Santiago Cevallos and Jonas Meinzer propelled them to the doubles Round of 32.
Five Aztecs needed just two sets to top his opponent in his opening round. Goles-Babic defeated crosstown rival Pratt Keerasuntonpong from San Diego with a pair of 6-2 wins. He secured another two-set win over Timothy Tan of Cal Poly to advance to the Round of 32. Sander Gjoles-Anderson beat Loyola Marymount's Alexander Bourgeois with two 6-3 set victories in the opening round before falling to USC's Nicholas Crystal, ranked No. 42 nationally, in the Round of 64.
The Aztecs who received first-round byes, Gelbrich, Jebens and Ianakiev, also topped their opponent with two-set wins to advance to the Round of 32. Ianakiev pinned up 6-2, 6-1 wins over UC Irvine's Tyler Pham. Gelbrich, sitting at No. 77 nationally, dominated in his tournament debut, cruising to a 6-1, 6-0 win over Guilherme Galvao from Pepperdine. No. 112 Jebens used 6-3, 6-4 wins over Kalman Boyd of USC to move on in the tournament.
Also in singles action, Cevallos lost his first set to Jason Jaruvang of Arizona, 6-3, and nearly forced the match to three sets before falling in the second set tiebreak, 7-6 (6), Meinzer fell in two sets to Axel Damiens, from Cal Poly, 7-5, 6-2, and Raul de la Torre dropped his Round of 128 match to Loyola Marymount's Joat Farah, 6-7 (6), 6-1, 2-6.
After a two-hour rain delay postponed the tournament's doubles action, Cevallos and Meinzer moved on to the round of 32 after topping Damiens and Joshua Ortlio from Cal Poly, 8-4. De la Torre and Gjoles-Anderson fell to Loyola Marymount's Luke Bohuslav and Errol Smith in a tiebreaker, 8-7. The pairings of Goles-Babic and Ianakiev and Gelbrich and Jebens received first-round byes and will make their tournament debuts today.
Play at the tournament resumes Friday with two rounds of doubles, one round of singles and consolation matches.