Chip, Nazal Advance to Semifinals at Gonzaga Fall Tournament
10/26/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
SPOKANE, Wash.—The Gonzaga University men's tennis team continued play at its own Gonzaga Fall Tournament Saturday and two singles players, Sergio Chip and Alvaro Nazal advanced to the semifinals of their respective brackets at the Stevens Center in Spokane, Wash.
In the Red Singles bracket, Chip played perhaps his best tennis of the season, tallying two victories to reach the semifinals. The senior beat Seattle U's Tanner Berkabile 6-1, 6-2 in the Round of 16 and breezed through Wacil Bendjelti of Eastern Washington 6-1, 6-0 in the quarters. He will face Portland's Kent Andreasan in the semis Sunday.
Nazal continued the excellent start to his redshirt junior season, advancing to the semifinals of the Blue Singles bracket. He began his singles play Saturday with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Montana State's Kellen Bates, reaching the quarterfinal round. In that match he faced a pesky Stuart Tieny of Portland State. Nazal took the first set 6-2, but Tieny got the edge in the second, winning a second-set tiebreaker 14-16. The Santiago native came back by sweeping the third set to clinch the match 6-2, 6-7(14-16), 6-0.
Nick Kamisar fell 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, to Portland State's Ethan Lopez, ending his run in the main bracket of the Blue Singles flight. Also falling out of his main flight, Chris Dalton lost 6-2, 6-2 to Ian Clare of Seattle U in the Red Singles bracket.
In consolation play, Vicente Varas and Joey Brandt both tallied a singles victory Saturday. Varas beat Montana's Semion Branzburg 6-4, 6-4 to open Blue Flight consolation play but fell in the bracket's quarterfinal to Harry James of Montana State. Brandt, in the Red Flight consolation bracket, took down Brady Hislop of Eastern Washington 6-1, 2-6, (10-7) in his first match of the day but fell to the Eagles' Rendell Burghart in the quarters. Connor Arend lost his Red Singles consolation flight, falling 6-4, 6-3 to the main bracket's top seed, Justin Martin-Morillas of Montana State.
In doubles play, Nazal and Kamisar advanced to the semifinals with a win over the second-seeded team of Tomasz Soltyka and Peter Mimnagh-Fleming 8-6. In the hunt for their second doubles crown of the fall, they'll play for the tournament championship, advancing through the semifinals on walkthrough due to illness.
Starting the doubles consolation bracket, Varas and Chip advanced to the quarterfinal with a 6-2 win over Eastern Washington's Burghart and Luke Ness. They fell in that quarterfinal match, however, losing 6-0 to Montana's Branzburg and Tom Witteveen.
Brandt and Vladimir Mijatovic were slated to take part in the doubles consolation bracket as well, but they were forced to withdraw after Mijatovic came down with an illness.
The Zags will finish their own Gonzaga Fall Tournament Sunday, Oct. 26. Play begins at 9:00 a.m., again at the Stevens Center.
