PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland men's tennis team opened its 2016 spring dual season with a 6-1 win over crosstown rival Portland State Friday night at the Louisiana-Pacific Tennis Center.
The Pilots (1-0) played a singles lineup featuring four sophomores and two freshmen.
Portland secured the doubles point with wins at the No. 1 and No. 2 positions. Sophomore Michail Pervolarakis teamed with freshman Felix Fan for a 6-3 victory at the No. 1 spot. Sophomore Alex Wallace and sophomore Pierre Garcia then clinched the doubles with a 6-4 win at No. 2.
The Pilots cruised to straight set wins in five of the six singles matches. Fan was dominant in his first collegiate dual match, winning both sets at love in the No. 4 spot.
Pierre Garcia also raced to a 6-2, 6-2 win at the No. 3 position, while his twin brother, Mathieu, clinched the match with a 6-4, 6-1 win at No. 2 singles.
Rounding out the points was Wallace in straight sets at No. 5 and freshman Carlos Donat earning his first win at No. 6 singles.
Portland State (0-1) earned a point at No. 1 singles, where Nathan Boniel outlasted Pervolarakis in three sets.
"The players and I are always a little edgy on the first match of the season, which I think is natural," Portland head coach Aaron Gross said. "We all feel good about how things are going, but don't really know where we are at until we get into it. Portland State plays hard and gave us some good challenges in spots. Their number one player played lights out against Mike. Other than that I thought we did a good job of taking care of business. Freshmen Felix Fan and Carlos Donat each got their first dual match victories. Felix was really impressive today, winning decisively over a player that is a senior and has played No. 1 at times during his career."
Portland will travel to Seattle, Wash. to take on a quality East Tennessee State squad on Monday at 10 a.m. at the Nordstrom Tennis Center on the University of Washington campus. Live video will be available courtesy of
GoHuskies.com.
"East Tennessee State will be a really fun match for us on Monday in Seattle," Gross added. "We had a super close match against them last season and we escaped with the win. I think they are a similar team as last season. It will be a good match to see where we are at right now. No doubt we have a lot of growing to do with such a young squad. Days like today give me a really good feeling that even though we are young, we have some maturity to us that I think will serve us well as the season goes along."
Portland 6, Portland State 1
Portland, Ore. (Louisiana-Pacific Tennis Center)
January 22, 2016
Singles1. Nathan Boniel (PSU) def. Michail Pervolarakis (POR) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3
2. Mathieu Garcia (POR) def. Scott Goldner (PSU) 6-4, 6-1
3. Pierre Garcia (POR) def. Brent Wheeler (PSU) 6-2, 6-2
4. Felix Fan (POR) def. Ethan Lopez (PSU) 6-0, 6-0
5. Alex Wallace (POR) def. Wil Cochrane (PSU) 6-2, 6-4
6. Carlos Donat (POR) def. Ian Risenhoover (PSU) 6-2, 6-2
Doubles1. Pervolarakis/Fan (POR) def. Lopez/Wheeler (PSU) 6-3
2. Wallace/P. Garcia (POR) def. Risenhoover/Goldner (PSU) 6-3
3. Cochrane/Boniel (PSU) def. Kent Andreasen/Goutham Sundaram (POR) 7-6 (3)
Order of Finish: Doubles (1,2,3) Singles (3,2,4,1,5,6)
