Battle In The Bay Draws and Results
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Opening up the 2014 fall season, all four Broncos in action came away with victories in tournament play this past week.
Santa Clara will return to the courts this weekend to compete in the ITA Regionals at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. The Broncos are slated to being play this Fri., Oct. 17 and will continue their matches throughout the weekend.
Senior Ilya Osintsev and junior Ashot Khacharyan traveled to Larkspur, Calif. to compete in the Mount Tam Invitational, playing against both collegiate and non-collegiate players. In his first round matchup, Osintsev rallied after the dropping the first set to come back and take the match against Alex Keyser, one of the top juniors in Northern California, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, to notch his first victory of the season. The 6-foot-4-inch lefty pulled out another three-set victory in his next match against Oren Motevassel, winning 7-6, 5-7, 6-1. Osintsev's streak came to an end in the quarterfinals when he was bested by former University of Tennessee player and now No. 340 ATP ranked competitor Tennys Sandgren, 6-4, 6-4.
Khacharyan also came away with an opening round victory in his first action of the season, routing his opponent 6-2, 6-1. The junior from Sochi, Russia advanced to the quarterfinals via default but fell in his next matchup 6-4, 6-4 to Greg Ouelette, formerly ranked No. 618 by the ATP.
Fellow Broncos Sam Bertram and Mikheil Khmiadashvili also recorded notable first season appearances competing down the road from their teammates at the Battle In The Bay Classic in San Francisco, Calif. over the weekend. After receiving a bye in the first round, Bertram bested Cal Poly's Corey Pang 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 to advance to the round of 16. However, the Melbourne, Australia native fell to the tournament's No. 7 seed, Tom Fawcett, from Stanford University, 6-2, 6-1.
Khmiadashvili, coming off a 10-win freshman season, came out strong with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over University of San Francisco's Johan Samuelsson. In his second matchup, the sophomore came away with a hard fought victory, taking down Pepperdine's Kento Tamaki. Khmiadashvili found himself in a hole after dropping the first set 5-7. However, he regained his composure and captured sets two and three 7-6, 7-6. The sophomore's tournament run came to an end in the round of 16 when he fell to Stanford's David Hsu 6-3, 6-0.
Both Bertram and Khmiadashvili also came together to compete as a tandem in doubles. The newly assembled duo received a bye in the first round and competed against fellow West Coast Conference competitors from the University of the Pacific, Sem Verbeek and Alex Hamilton. The Santa Clara pairing fell 8-2 to the Tigers.
