SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - The UC Santa Barbara Men's Tennis team hosted the Big West Fall Invite over the weekend, closing out the tournament with a doubles championship victory.
SINGLES COMPETITION
Opening the morning singles matches, Charlie Underwood came away with a commanding 6-0, 6-3 victory over Andrew Beceiro from UC San Diego before being forced to retire from the tournament due to injury in the subsequent round.
Carson Lee kicked off the round of 32 with an impressive straight-sets win against UC Riverside's Michael Chang, 6-3, 6-3. As wind conditions picked up, Lee battled through a tight three-set match but ultimately fell to Cal Poly's Raz Haviv, 3-6, 6-4, 3-6.
Freshman Karel Fromel made a strong home debut, rallying from a set down to defeat Hawaii's Kent Mueller, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. He carried that momentum into the next round with a decisive 6-1, 7-5 victory over UC San Diego's Abhinav Chunduru. Fromel's impressive run came to an end in the quarterfinals, where he fell to UC Davis' Lucas Bollinger, 3-6, 5-7.
After receiving a bye into the round of 16, senior Diogo Morais brought experience and intensity to the court, prevailing over Sean Kamyshev from Cal Poly, 6-4, 6-2. In a hard-fought quarterfinal match, Morais was edged out by UC Irvine's Max Fardanesh in three sets, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 3-6.
DOUBLES COMPETITION
Doubles play began in an 8-game pro-set format. With an automatic berth into the quarterfinals, the duo of Lucca Liu and Diogo Morais faced UC Irvine's Max Fardanesh and Rui Ning Huang, rallying to even the score before narrowly falling in a tiebreak, 7-8 (4).
On Friday morning, Miguel Avendano and Conrad Brown opened their campaign with a strong 8-4 win over UC Irvine's Tal Goodman and Sohrob Amiryavari. They followed up with another assertive victory against Cal Poly's Raz Haviv and Luc Hoeijmans, 8-4. In the semifinals, the Gaucho pair fought through a tight contest to defeat UC Davis's Perry Di Giulio and Rithvik Katpelly, 8-6. Capping off an outstanding run, the senior tandem clinched the doubles title in front of the home crowd with a confident 8-3 triumph over Cal Poly's Sean Kamyshev and Jovan Lubbe.
