Glendale’s men’s tennis team beat the winless Santa Barbara City College team 6-3 on March 22 at Glendale.
The Glendale team was in a very good mood entering this match. The players were joking around with each other pre-match.
Coach Bob McKay was also optimistic before the match started.
“They (Santa Barbara) are missing their No. 1 player. They are going to be in trouble.”
This would prove to be true. Glendale was able to take a commanding lead by winning four out of the six singles matches. The four singles players who won were: Alex Sarkissian (6-1, 6-0), Trevor Campbell (6-1, 6-2), Grayson Frazier (7-5, 6-2) and Dro Mahmoudi (6-2, 7-5).
Frazier’s match against John Rosekvist was very close in the first set. Rosekvist did not have one style of play throughout. This gave Frazier trouble in finding a weakness. He kept getting his hits consistently deep in the court and let Rosekvist hit unforced errors. This allowed Frazier to take a late service break.
Mahmoudi’s match was another entertaining one to watch. He used a mixutre of moon-balls and hard forehands to throw off his opponent. Mahmoudi hustled to get every ball back. His match would make Brad Gilbert proud.
The match was sealed with two victories from the pairs of Sarkissian/Campbell (8-2) and Frazier/Mike Astorian (8-3).
Stephan Mamann did not have the best tennis day losing both his singles and doubles matches.
“It was a tough day at the office,” Mamann said.He attempted to throw off his opponent by grunting noisily after each shot and yelling “Vamos” like professional tennis player Rafael Nadal. This did not work but there he said that he is eager to play the rest of the season.
“I am excited for the Ojai tournament because they are letting number three singles players in,” Mamann said. “Alex (Sarkissian) is definitely going to win it.”
Coach McKay said, “Ojai is going to be good for these players. That is where the scouts go to watch our players.”
McKay said that Alex Sarkissian is considering playing for Loyola Marymount University or Pepperdine University next year. McKay also said that freshman Trevor Campbell has a good chance to play Division 1 tennis in the future.
