BERKELEY- With an unmatched pedigree among Division III tennis programs, UC Santa Cruz went big in getting their first action of the new season.

The current team opened 2022-23 by playing in the Battle in the Bay tournament hosted by UC Berkeley. Four Banana Slug student-athletes competed in the field which included players from Cal and six other Division I institutions. This weekend's matches served as a qualifier for the "Championship Round" to be held next weekend in San Francisco.

Andre Mardirossian advanced in the main singles draw after beating Cal's Michael Wright 7-6 6-3. He then lost a hard-fought match against Stanford's Neel Rajesh, the two-time Pac-12 champion.
Returners Sam Hall and Andrew Tjoa also played tough first round matches against opponents from UNLV and UC Davis respectively. JC transfer Ryan Lam advanced in the Consolation bracket by beating Sumir Srivastava of St. Mary's for his first win as a Banana Slug.

The Banana Slug quartet will continue play in Berkeley on Saturday starting at 9:00am. Live Streams of all their matches will be on Goslugs.com.

FULL RESULTS
DAY ONE

Doubles-Round of 16

Maxant/Watt (SMC) def. Lam/Hall (UCSC), 8-3

Bailey/Rsovac (UNLV) def. Mardirossian/Tjoa (UCSC), 8-4

Singles

Round of 32

Dusan Rsovac (UNLV) def. Sam Hall (UCSC), 6-4, 6-2

(4) Andrei Volgin (UC Davis) def. Andrew Tjoa (UCSC), 6-3, 6-1

(6) Maxim Verboven (UNLV) def. Ryan Lam (UCSC), 6-2, 6-0

Andre Mardirossian (UC Santa Cruz) def. Mikey Wright (Cal), 7-6(5), 6-3

Round of 16

(7) Neel Rajesh (Stanford) def. Andre Mardirossian (UCSC), 6-1, 6-1

Consolation
Johan Garpered (USF) def. Sam Hall (UCSC), 6-3, 1-6, 10-8

Ryan Lam (UCSC) def. Sumir Srivastava (SMC), 6-1, 6-3

Milos Dabic (UNLV) def. Andrew Tjoa (UCSC), 6-0, 6-2