UCLA
ITA Regional Championships
Men's Tennis Reaches Rounds of 16 at Regionals
October 20, 2019 | Men's Tennis
MALIBU, Calif. โ Play wrapped at the ITA Southwest Regional Championships Sunday and the UCLA men's tennis team left with round-of-16 showings in both the singles and doubles tournaments.
Each of the six individual Bruin participants and both doubles teams notched at least one win at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center.
One week removed from picking up his first-career singles victory, redshirt freshman Blaine Hovenier got back to his winning ways by knocking off Chia-Hua Lu of Hawai'i, 6-4, 7-5, in the first round. Hovenier's time would end his next time out, as he dropped a 6-3, 6-3 decision to Mor Bulis of USC.
The other five Bruins in action received first-round byes and got to work in the round of 64. Pitted against top-seeded and eighth-ranked Daniel Cukierman of USC, sophomore Max Wild dropped his main-draw match by a 6-1, 6-0 count. Connor Rapp, meanwhile, was on the flip side of the same score in his Regionals opener, losing just one game to Emin Torlic of Loyola Marymount. Sophomore Patrick Zahraj made his 2019-20 debut versus Can Franke of Grand Canyon, who was dealt a 6-1, 6-3 defeat by his Bruin counterpart. Kicking off his final season was Ben Goldberg, who cruised to a 6-2, 6-0 win versus Roman Shenkiryk of Cal Poly. Rounding out the round-of-64 participants was freshman Drew Baird, who received a stiff challenge from UC Irvine's Daniel Gealer before pulling out a 7-6(4), 6-4 victory.
Rapp ran into Cukierman in the round of 32, where the Bruin nearly pushed his crosstown rival to a third set before falling, 6-1, 7-5. Zahraj's time would also end in the third round, as he lost to fellow German Tim Zeitvogel of Pepperdine in a close one, 7-6(1), 7-5. Baird lost in a walkover versus fellow first-year player Stefan Dostanic of USC, but Goldberg kept his journey going. Forced into a third set by UC Santa Barbara's Joseph Rotheram, Goldberg took six of seven games for the 6-3, 6-7(9), 6-1 win and a trip to the round of 16. His time would end there, as he dropped two of three games to 88th-ranked Jake Sands of USC before retiring.
In the back draw, Wild picked up a win versus Amit Batta of Washington, 7-5, 6-2, before being bounced by Lucas Labrunie of Hawai'i, 6-0, 6-3.
Rapp and Wild also teamed up in the doubles draw, where they debuted by doubling up Nabil Abdallah and Gilbert Chung of UC Riverside in an eight-game pro set. Hawai'i's Andre Ilagan and Lucas Labrunie were next up, as Rapp and Wild turned in an 8-5 win to move into the round of 16. With a trip to the quarterfinals on the line, Dostanic and Bradley Frye of USC collected an 8-3 victory to end the Bruins' run. The tandem of Baird and Zahraj won their first match in the round of 32, 8-5 versus Axel Labrunie and Blaz Seric, before dropping an 8-5 decision to Rotheram and Victor Krustev of UCSB.
Players Mentioned
