SEATTLE, Wash. – The Portland men's tennis had six players advance to the second round of singles and two doubles teams advance as well on Thursday to open the USTA/ITA Regional Championships hosted by the University of Washington.
In singles play, freshmen Felix Fan and Carlos Donat each advanced in straight sets. Sophomores Mathieu Garcia, Jared Madison and Michail Pervolarakis also cruised to straight set wins, while Pierre Garcia came back from a first set tiebreaker loss to win in three sets.
"Based on who we are right now, today was a very positive day," Portland head coach Aaron Gross said. "We had four sophomores and two freshmen advance to the second day of regionals, which is a success. Stanford, Cal, and Washington have the expectation to do what we did today. That is where we hope we are headed with this group. They played with energy and guts today. For sure the tournament is going to keep getting tougher and tougher. The top seeds had byes today, and integrate into the tourney tomorrow. The bottom line is that we did a good job taking care of business and have earned the right to enjoy some opportunities against better and better competition as the tournament continues on."
In doubles action, Jamie Fisher and Goutham Sundaram cruised to an 8-2 doubles victory, while Pervolarakis and Alex Wallace also advanced to the next round in the main draw.
"We won two of our three doubles first round matches, which is a stat I will take at this point in the season," Gross added. "We have concerns about the fact that we graduated two guys that could play with anyone in the region in doubles – Steffen Dierauf and Reid deLaubenfels – and no matter which freshmen you bring in, there is a steep learning curve when it comes to doubles. We really need to keep making daily progress in this area. Our goal going into the tournament was to make sure that when we get back in the van at the end of the tournament, that every single player feels as if they are a better player than when they got in the van on Wednesday. Though it is only day one, I'd say we accomplished that goal today."
The singles and doubles draws continue with Friday matches and through the weekend with the finals scheduled for Monday.
