Baylor University Team Page
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - Five Baylor men's tennis players all picked up one singles win on the first day of the Sherwood Collegiate Cup hosted at the Sherwood Country Club on Friday.
Sophomore Marko Krickovic, ranked No. 50 in the country, was the lone Bear to be victorious in his first match of the day. He downed Michael Grant of USC, 6-3, 6-3, to advance to the Round of 16. Krickovic's run in the main draw ended there as he was beaten by UCLA's Dennis Novikov, 6-4, 6-4.
The remaining four BU players all dropped their first-round main draw contest, before rebounding to take their next match in the first round of consolation play.
Sophomore Mate Zsiga, ranked 60th, lost to Karue Sell of UCLA, 6-4, 6-4, before bouncing back to down Stanford's Daniel Ho, 6-1, 6-2.
Junior Robert Verzaal faltered in his match vs. 61st-ranked Eric Johnson of USC, 6-2, 6-2, but was then able to take down UCLA's Alex Brigham, 6-3, 6-4.
Sophomore Diego Galeano got past Stanford's Denis Lin, 6-0, 6-4, in consolation action, after losing to Lin's teammate Nolan Paige, 6-4, 6-3, in the first match of the day.
Newcomer Tony Lupieri had the longest day of any Bear as he pushed UCLA's Adrien Puget to a tiebreaker in the second set, before losing the match, 7-5, 7-6(5). He then came back and won in three sets against Maciek Romanowicz of Stanford, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (8), 10-8.
All four of the Bears who won their consolation match will continue play in that bracket tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. (CT). The schedule for Saturday pits Zsiga vs.UCLA's Ryoto Tachi, Verzaal vs. Stanford's Robert Stineman, Galeano vs. USC's Grant and Lupieri vs. Stanford's Matt Kandath. Krickovic will take part in back draw action.
Doubles play will also start on Saturday as Lupieri and Krickovic face Brigham and Dennis Mkrtchian of UCLA, while Zsiga and Galeano will take on Johnny Wang and Grant of USC. Both matches are slated to begin at 12:30 p.m. (CT).
BaylorBears.com will have a full recap and complete results of the action at the end of each day of competition in California. Follow @BaylorMTennis on Twitter for results and updated information.
