Tennis Season in Full Swing

A successful start to the Broncos’ tennis seasons Jay Mehta The Santa Clara November 2, 2017Santa Clara Men’s Tennis team has had an eventful past month, raking up multiple wins and a few disappointing losses at three different tournaments.The team ended the annual Pacific Tigers’ Invitational this past weekend with two runner-up finishes. The doubles team consisting of Connor Garnett and Kamran Khan lost to Sacramento State players Mikus Losbergs and Kasparas Žemaitėlis, the number one doubles seed. The final score in the open doubles bracket was a disappointing 8-3. Sebastien Mathieu, a senior from London, also lost his game in the single consolation bracket. He played Cal Poly’s Daly Meinert and the final score was 7-5, 6-1.Santa Clara ended the Pacific Tigers Invitational with a 21-10 match record. The team had a strong first day, going 12-2. On the second day they had a significantly worse performance, going 8-6 and on the final day they went 1-2.Of the six players representing the Broncos, the Khan/Garnett doubles duo and Mathieu had the best performances. Khan and Garnett played in the 32-team open doubles bracket and won four matches that got them all the way to the finals. Similarly, Mathieu also won four games in the singles bracket and made it to the finals.The Women’s Tennis team has had an eventful month as well. The team earned two doubles wins and one singles win at the Saint Mary’s Invitational in October.Elvena Gevargiz and Delaney Nothaft both won a singles match and then played together to win a doubles match. Gevargiz started the day off strong by defeating Sacramento State’s Carolina Chernyetsky in three sets.The final score of 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 took Gevargiz to the quarterfinals.In the quarterfinals however, Gevargiz lost to San Jose State’s Jacqueline Wagner 6-1, 6-4. Like Gevargiz, Nothaft also advanced to the quarterfinals in the consolation bracket but lost to Sonoma State’s Amanda Zuidema, 6-3, 6-3. In the doubles consolation bracket, the Gevargiz/Nothaft team defeated Sacramento State’s Frana Ugarkovic/Sofia Wicker, 8-3 in the first round.While this was a landslide victory, their next game was far from it. The team lost 8-2 against San Francisco’s Alexa Meyer and Fresno State’s Abbey Watanabe.The Women’s team had a similarly average result in the ITA Northwest Regional Championships that took place from Oct. 19-23 at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium on Stanford’s campus.The team earned three wins in the consolation bracket, including two singles wins by Gevargiz and Zeina El Tawil and a doubles win by Gevargiz/Katya Tabachnik.Madison Clarke and Maddie Pothoff lost a close game (8-7) in the open doubles bracket to Oregon’s Daniela Nasser and Nia Rose.Gevargiz and El Tawil won both of their matches in straight sets. Gevargiz defeated Sacramento State’s Wicker 6-1, 6-3. El Tawil defeated Pacific’s Maayan Sela, 6-2, 6-2.Contact Jay Mehta at jmehta1@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852