Eighth-ranked Westmont Men’s Tennis defended its top-ten ranking with a 7-2 victory over #23 Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) on Tuesday at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Rancho Mirage. The Warriors won two of three doubles matches and five of six singles.
“We started off a little bit lethargic and a little bit unsure,” noted Westmont Head Coach Mark Basham. “But the guys knew that it was important to win this match and pulled it together.”
Westmont lost the number one doubles match where Ivan Krijanto and Benjamin Robert defeated Carlos Lima and Bryan Cox 8-5. But Diego Almeida and Mattias Neuman evened the score by defeating Oliver Stone Sindayigaya and Cesar Uauy 8-2 at court two. Westmont went ahead 2-1 with an 8-5 win by Arthur Kalayjian and Tiago Hayashi over Tyler Oram and Lincoln Gay at court three.
Lima and Cox both redeemed themselves in singles play. On court number one, Lime defeated Krijanto 6-1, 6-1 while on court number three Cox knocked off Robert 7-5, 6-0.
At number two singles, Hayashi got off to rough start against Chong, falling behind 5-2 in the first set. But Hayashi rallied to win the next three games and tie the score at five-all. Chong won the next game but Hayashi responded to force the tiebreaker. Hayashi prevailed 7-4 in the tiebreaker to take the first set 7-6 and then proceeded to claim the match with a 6-3 victory in the second set.
On court number four, Almeida was struggling against Sindayigaya.
“Diego lost the first set (6-2) but turned it around to win the second set (6-2),” said Basham. “He showed a lot of heart to win 6-3 in the third set.”
On the number five court, Neuman dispatched Uauy with a 6-3, 6-1 victory. Westmont’s only singles loss came at number six where Kalayjian battled hard but fell to Victor Garcia Barcina by scores of 7-6 (6), 6-4.
Westmont concludes it spring break trip to the desert with a rematch against #11 Point Loma Nazarene tomorrow afternoon at the Plaza Racquet Club in Palm Springs. Westmont won the first meeting between the two schools on February 13 by a score of 7-2. The match is scheduled for a two o’clock start.
