By Gilbert Quiñonez
Daily Bruin Contributor
Four UCLA tennis players played in one of the elite preseason
tournaments in the nation, the Omni Hotels National Indoor Tennis
Championships, played in Dallas over the weekend. In the
women’s singles tournament, Sara Walker of UCLA was upset by
Alice Pirsu of Pennsylvania 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the first round.
However, Walker rebounded and won three straight matches to win the
consolation bracket, beating Mira Radu of Mississippi 4-6, 7-6,
6-2.
In the women’s doubles tournament, Sara Walker and Petya
Marinova played well, advancing all the way to the semifinals,
where they lost to Lauren Kalvaria and Gabriela Lastra of Stanford
8-6. Kalvaria and Lastra ended up winning the tournament.
In the men’s singles tournament, UCLA’s Marcin
Matkowski advanced to the round of 16, beating Mike Yani of Duke
6-4, 6-3 in the first round and losing to Harsh Mankad of
Minnesota, 6-4, 7-6(5) in the round of 16.
In the men’s doubles tournament, Matkowski and Jean-Julien
Rojer went to the quarterfinals, beating Florian Marquardt and
Pedro Nieto of Virginia Commonwealth in the first round, 8-6, and
losing to Casey Smith and Javier Taborga of Notre Dame in the
quarterfinals, 8-6.
UCLA’s top players showed that they can compete with the
elite of the nation this weekend, which hopefully will continue
into the regular season for the tennis teams, which starts in
January.