Men’s Tennis Heads to San Diego to End Regular Season

Vasileios Iliopoulos (left) and Connor Garnett

Posted: Apr 19, 2017

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Santa Clara men's tennis heads to San Diego for its final two matches of the regular season. The Broncos play at San Diego State in a non-conference match on Friday at 2 p.m. PT. San Diego then hosts SCU in the final West Coast Conference match of the season on Sunday at 1 p.m.

"I'm hoping to see a little bit of a bounce back from a tough home loss," head coach Niall Angus said. "We talk about responding to adversity a lot and this will be an opportunity to showcase our leadership and play against two very good opponents and two well-coached teams."

Santa Clara fell to 14-5 (4-4 WCC) on the season after the team lost 4-3 in a close match to San Francisco on Saturday in the final match of the season at Degheri Tennis Center. The Broncos won the doubles point but won just two singles matches on courts two and five. Santa Clara went 10-3 at home on the year.

SCU bounced back in doubles play and won the point after failing to secure the point in the previous two matches. Overall, the Broncos have lost the doubles point eight times this year but come back to win the match on five occasions.

Sophomore Robert Seby boasts a 9-8 singles record in dual match play with each match coming on court one. Sophomore Andrew Gu is 13-4 playing on court two and has won seven of his last 10 matches. Sophomore Connor Garnett has gone 5-3 in his last 10 matches and is 13-4 on court three in dual match play. The trio has combined for a 35-16 record in singles play.

Freshman Jesus Tapiador Barajas owns a 9-6 record on court four for SCU and had the match-clinching victory for the Broncos at Pacific (March 31). Freshman Vasileios Iliopoulos is 12-5 in match play (1-0 on court four and 11-5 on court five), including the clinching win for the Broncos at LSU (Feb. 3). Kamran Khan is 1-0 on court five this year and 6-6 on court six.

"As I say to the guys all the time, to win on the road you have to be 20% better than your opponents," Angus said. "It's not enough just to be the same and we are going to go in with that mindset."

San Diego State is 7-14 overall on the year and is 3-3 in conference action. The Aztecs won their last two matches at Air Force and at New Mexico. Marko Goles-Babic has won five straight matches for the squad and is 9-7 (6-5 on court one) on the year in dual play.

San Diego is 12-9 overall this season and 4-3 in league play. The Toreros lost at Pepperdine last weekend but won their two previous matches at Loyola Marymount and at home against Pacific. The team plays both San Francisco and UNLV on Friday before facing SCU on Sunday. Joel Gamerov is 13-4 in dual play for the Toreros with most of his matches played on courts four and five. Filip Vittek is 9-6 in dual play with all of his matches coming on court one.

"These two teams have been very successful in the past and still have really good teams," Angus said. "It will be a challenge to see where we're at and test ourselves against some of the best competition."

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