Posted: Oct 26, 2018
MORAGA, Calif. – Santa Clara men's tennis had a solid first day at the Saint Mary's Fall Invitational on Friday, winning five of seven singles matches and claiming five doubles matchups in the non team-scored three-day tournament.
The tournament features players from 12 schools - Cal, Stanford, San Francisco, Santa Clara, UC Davis, Sac State, Holy Names, Sonoma State, Pacific, Cal Poly, Fresno State, and host Saint Mary's at the Timothy Korth Tennis Complex on the SMC campus.
All eight members of the Santa Clara roster were in action with junior Jesus Tapiador Barajas and freshman Arthur Neuhaus leading the way with three wins apiece. Paired together in doubles, Tapiador Barajas and Neuhaus advanced to the semifinals of the B draw beating Javier Luque and Valentin Baranyi of Holy Names, 8-3, and Sacramento State's Bernardo Moraes and Josh Snowdon-Poole, 8-2.
Tapiador Barajas and Neuhaus also won their singles matches in the A draw along with senior Robert Seby and junior Vasileios Iliopoulos. Senior Kamran Khan was victorious in its match in the singles B draw as all five singles winners will play in the round of 16 on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.
In doubles, senior Connor Garnett and Seby won its opening round in the A draw over Daniel Krutnik and Matis Bot of Saint Mary's, 8-6, before losing to Cal Poly's Dominic Bechard and Karapet Vardanyan, 8-3.
Khan and freshman Santiago Hinojosa beat Sacramento State's Abdulaziz Albayouk and Gabriel Gilbert, 8-1, in the B draw round of 16 but lost in the next round to Dariush Jalali and Arjith Jayaraman, 8-2.
Senior Andrew Gu and Iliopoulos won its A draw consolation match, 8-3, over Dustin Kua and Campbell Nakayama after being bounced in the first round of the main draw by Sonoma State's Lovedeep Singh and Max Nudell, 8-3.
Action resumes at 9 a.m. on Saturday.