March 1, 2017
SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego State men's tennis team continues its lengthy homestand this weekend it welcomes Pepperdine (March 2) and Boise State (March 5) to Aztec Tennis Center for a pair of dual matches. Thursday's clash with the Waves is slated for a 2 p.m. PT start, while Sunday's Mountain West opener against the Broncos is slated to get underway at 10 a.m. PT.
In addition, SDSU is scheduled to participate in the 128th annual Pacific Coast Men's Doubles Championships, March 3-5, at La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club in La Jolla, Calif.
The Aztecs have won three of their last four duals, including a convincing 6-1 triumph over Saint Mary's at home on Feb. 24. SDSU captured the early doubles point and took five of the six singles encounters to even its record at 4-4 on the year.
Individually, the Aztecs have been paced by Milen Ianakiev (Elz, Hesse, Germany), who sports a 10-6 overall record in singles competition, including a 5-3 mark in dual matches. The SDSU senior has won five of his last six battles alternating between the No. 1 and No. 2 positions on the team's ladder. In addition, the Aztecs have received four victories in dual-match play from junior Santiago Cevallos (Queretaro, Mexico), along with freshman Joel Popov (Tampere, Finland) and fellow classmate Rafael Gonzalez Almazan (Madrid, Spain), who joined the squad in early January.
Popov and Gonzalez Almazan have combined to post a 4-1 record at No. 3 doubles this spring, while the pairing of senior Marko Goles-Babic (Zagreb, Croatia) and sophomore Sander Gjoels-Andersen (Klampenborg, Denmark) are 4-3 in the No. 1 spot.
At quick glance finds Pepperdine at 3-5 in dual-match competition this season after dropping a pair of contests on the road last weekend. The Waves came up on the short end of a 4-1 score at No. 37 Florida State on Feb. 24, before suffering a 4-2 setback at No. 39 South Florida two days later on Feb. 26.
Individually, the Waves are led by junior Pedro Iamachkine, who boasts a 13-7 overall singles record, including a 5-3 mark in dual matches, alternating between the No. 2 and No. 3 spots. In addition, senior Guilherme Hadlich and freshman Dane Esses have amassed 11 wins each. Hadlich is 4-4 at No. 1 singles, while Esses owns an identical ledger playing in the fifth and sixth positions. Elsewhere, senior Stefan Menichella is 9-6 on the season, including a 3-1 mark at No. 2 singles.
In doubles play, the tandem of Hadlich and sophomore Gabriel Sidney is 6-2 on the year, including a spotless 5-0 ledger at the No. 2 spot, while the pairing of Menichella and sophomore Jack Van Slyke is 3-5 in the No. 1 spot.
San Diego State has traditionally had its hands full against Pepperdine, posting a 3-17 record against their Southern California nemesis since 1989, including a 5-1 setback at home last year. The Waves prevailed in a hotly contested doubles round before taking four singles matches. Ianakiev notched the Aztecs' lone singles win with a triumph over Sidney in a super-tiebreaker.
Meanwhile, Boise State (2-11) has dropped five in a row, including a 4-1 loss to Princeton at the Blue-Gray National Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 26. Prior to their engagement with SDSU, the Broncos will face Toledo on Thursday in a neutral-site clash at San Diego Tennis and Racquet Club.
Boise State is led by sophomore Jack Heslin, a New Zealand native who owns a 12-8 overall record in singles play on the season, including a 5-5 mark in duals primarily at the No. 3 position. In addition, fellow classmate and compatriot Kyle Butters sports an 8-10 ledger overall and a 2-6 mark this spring in the No. 1 spot, with three matches left unfinished.
Butters and Heslin have combined to form the Broncos' most successful doubles team this season, posting a 9-5 record on the year, including a 3-3 dual-match mark in the No. 1 position. The tandem entered the spring with a No. 51 national ranking by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).
SDSU is 7-9 against the Broncos in program history after suffering a pair of losses last year during the regular season and in the semifinals of the Mountain West Championships. Due to inclement weather, the last encounter between the two teams in the 2016 conference tournament featured a shift to an indoor venue before the Aztecs fell by a 4-2 count. The Scarlet and Black claimed the doubles point, with Cevallos and Ianakiev supplying the clincher after outlasting the Broncos' duo of Butters and Toby Mitchell at center court, 7-5. However, SDSU could muster just one win in singles play as Goles-Babic dispatched Pedro Platzeck, 6-3, 6-3, in the No. 5 spot.
The Aztecs' action-packed weekend also includes five pairings in the Pacific Coast Men's Doubles Championships. The tournament begins on Friday at 8 a.m., with Popov and Gonzalez Almazan squaring off against the tandem of Kevin Mullins and Sean Mullins, while the duo of Goles-Babic and Ianakiev battles Bob Drakulich and Nico Drakulich at 8:50 a.m. In addition, Cevallos and Gjoels-Anderson will join forces to battle Blake Suard and Tanner Suard starting at 9:40 a.m., while freshmen David Hough (Traralgon, Australia) and Nicholas Mitchell (Ojai, Calif.) are scheduled to face the USC combo of David Laser and Logan Smith beginning at 10:30 a.m. Not to be outdone, SDSU head coach Gene Carswell and assistant coach Jeff Thomsen will lock horns with Adam Levie and Toki Sherbakov at 9:40 a.m.
Draws are subject to change and may be accessed here. Live coverage is also available at FloTennis.com ($).
The second-oldest tennis event in the United States, the Pacific Coast Men's Doubles Championships features pairings from a plethora of college teams, including nationally ranked squads in No. 7 California, No. 11 Oklahoma State, No. 16 Stanford, No. 21 UCLA and No. 32 USC. In addition to the Aztecs, Pepperdine and Boise State, the field also features competitors from such schools as Boston College, Indiana, Portland, Toledo, UC Davis, UC Davis, USD, Villanova and William & Mary.
Past winners include such notables as Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder, Bobby Riggs, Pancho Segura, Don Budge, Tony Trabert, Stan Smith, Bob Lutz, Arthur Ashe, Dennis Ralston, John McEnroe and many other world-class champions.
SDSU will resume its non-conference slate with a pair of dual matches the following week in Stillwater, Okla. The Aztecs will tangle with Memphis in a neutral-site clash on March 11, before engaging host Oklahoma State the next day on March 12.