Jan. 18, 2014
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SAN DIEGO - The No. 49 San Diego State men's tennis team began its dual season on a high note, sweeping a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at Aztec Tennis Center. SDSU defeated Mountain West foe Nevada, 4-3, to begin the day before topping UC Riverside, 5-2.
With the victory over Nevada, SDSU is off to a 1-0 start in MW play, as the Aztecs have now won eight-straight regular-season conference matches, and seven-consecutive regular season matches going back to last season.
San Diego State claimed the doubles point against Nevada to start the match, with a victory by the No. 3 team of senior Juan Florez (Bogota, Colombia) and Milen Ianakiev (Elz, Germany) over Nevada's unit of Andrew Poustie and Fernando Sunago, 6-1, before the SDSU No. 1 duo of junior Thorsten Bertsch (Mannheim, Germany) and senior Hunter Nicholas (Park City, Utah) clinched the point with a decision over the Wolf Pack team of Quentin Mege and Moez Echargui, 6-3. San Diego State's No. 2 doubles team of Freddy Gelbrich (Isernhagen, Germany) and Hendrik Jebens (Stuttgart, Germany) fell to Nevada's duo of Victor Ouvrard and Robert Allen, 6-5 (2).
Gelbrich, playing in his first dual match since 2012, got the Aztecs off to a good start in singles play with a victory over Poustie, 6-3, 6-2, before Jebens topped Mege, 6-5 (3), 6-4. After Nevada's Ryan Andrada knocked off Ianakiev, 6-4, 6-2, Sunago defeated Florez, 6-4, 6-4, and Ouvrard held off Nicholas in three sets, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1, Bertsch sealed the Aztecs' dual win with his 6-4, 6-4 decision over Echargui to give San Diego State a 4-3 victory.
"We respect Nevada, we had a good match with them last year," San Diego State head coach Gene Carswell said. "I'm happy with how we competed in a lot of spots. There are a lot of improvements we can make, but this was a good job coming out of the gate. We set the tone in doubles (play), and it carried over into singles."
In the second match of the double header against UC Riverside, SDSU got off to another good start by sweeping doubles play. Jebens/Gelbrich topped Jack Felich and Julian Ruffin, 6-3, Florez/Ianakiev knocked off Calvin Ngo and Marcus Vizcarra, 6-4, and Bertsch/Nicholas completed the sweep over Cooper Bridge and Michael Carella, 6-5 (10).
Bertsch finished off Felich, 6-1, 6-1, in No. 1 singles play to give SDSU a 2-0 advantage, and Nicholas made it 3-0 with is win over Luis Gastao, 6-2, 6-1, in the No. 2 spot. Gelbrich defeated Ruffin, 6-2, 6-3, in No. 3 singles, before Ianakiev beat Sean Yun, 6-5 (4), 6-2, to seal the dual match victory. Jebens lost to Bridge, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, in the No. 4 slot, while Florez fell to Ngo 1-6, 6-4, 10-3 in No. 5 singles.
The Aztecs resume action next Saturday in the first round of the ITA Kickoff in Durham, N.C., as they take on No. 43 North Carolina beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET.