Mixed fortunes for tennis at Pac-10s
Three UCLA men advance on day one, while women’s Phebus moves
on
By Sarah Harrison
and Chris Isidro
OJAI, Calif. — Picket fences, church bells … and the sound of
squeaking tennis shoes? A gas station attendant in town gave these
simple directions to the Pac-10 Tournament: "Honey, tennis is
everywhere."
This sleepy little community called Ojai was awakened on
Thursday as the opening rounds of singles were contested all across
town. At Libby Park in downtown Ojai, three of the five UCLA men
survived the first round including Robert Janecek and Eric
Taino.
Heath Montgomery turned in perhaps the best UCLA performance of
the day in a 3-6, 7-6, 7-6 loss to No. 25 Scott Humphries of
Stanford. The unranked Bruin applied the pressure throughout, but
the Cardinal freshman took the key points with the match in the
balance.
"I played a very good match," Montgomery said. "Unfortunately, I
just wasn’t able to pull it out."
It took nearly three hours for USC’s Manuel Ramirez to knock off
Bruin freshman Matthew Breen 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. Breen could not reverse
his fortunes against Ramirez, falling in much the same way as their
previous match up.
"The first set was similar to what happened earlier," Breen
said. "I got up early then just gave it to him."
Justin Gimelstob coasted in his first-round match against Tsolak
Gevorkian. Despite Gimelstob’s mental lull in the second set,
Gevorkian needed a nervous breakdown across the net to stave off
his 6-1, 6-4 defeat.
"I wanted to get off the court and get ready for my next match,"
Gimelstob said. "So my concentration slipped a little."
* * *
Up the road at the Ojai Valley Inn, only one of UCLA’s four
entries survived the tournament’s first day. Second-ranked Keri
Phebus, the top seed this weekend, coasted into the third round
with straight-set victories against Arizona State’s Angela Lansdorp
and USC’s Pam Trump.
Phebus played with bandages around her right elbow and knee to
cover stitches sewn after a motor scooter accident on campus
earlier in the week. Though the injuries did not affect the
junior’s play on Thursday, Phebus’s status for the remainder of the
tourney is still uncertain.
"(Phebus) told me against Trump that she was hurting and that
she couldn’t move very well," UCLA women’s head coach Bill Zaima
said. "She doesn’t need to beat people here and I’m only going to
let her play if she feels she can win the tournament."
Things also seemed to be going well for Paige Yaroshuk at Ojai.
After a straight-set win her opening match, the Bruin captain
continued her good fortune in the second round, winning the first
set 6-1 over Reka Cseresnyes.
"If Paige gets this match, I think it looks very good for us to
get into the NCAA tournament," Zaima said after the first set.
But momentum is such a mercurial commodity in tennis, and when
it shifted against Yaroshuk, her one set lead instantly vanished.
Cseresnyes reversed the tide in the second and did not look
back.
Instead of beginning an NCAA tournament run, Yaroshuk dropped
the sixth match in the last eight 6-1, 7-5, 6-3.
Diana Spadea played well on Thursday, but not well enough to see
action on Friday. She romped past Amy Chiminello of Stanford 6-0,
6-2 to avenge an earlier defeat this season before drawing
second-seeded Pam Nelson of Cal. Nelson proved to be too much for
the Bruin sophomore and earned a trip to the quarters 6-0, 6-2.
The draw was not so kind to Bruin junior Anicia Mendez either.
After breezing by Sayaka Kimura 7-6, 6-0 in her first match, Mendez
took on fourth-seed Vicki Maes of Arizona. Mendez held tough early
and dug up a lot of difficult Maes offerings. But Mendez’s
inability to attack the Wildcat’s second serve proved costly in her
6-4, 6-4 loss.