Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Oh, brother: Bryans, Murrays to meet

Andy Murray slugs a forehand during his quarter-
final victory over Kei Nishikori at the Australian
Open in January.
   Family pride will be at stake Thursday in the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters.
   Identical twins Bob and Mike Bryan, the top seeds and defending champions in doubles, will face brothers Andy and Jamie Murray for the first time in the second round. It's not known when the last time two sets of brothers met on the ATP World Tour.
   Andy, 24, and Jamie, 26, set up the intriguing match with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico and Christopher Kas of Germany. It was the Murrays' first win together on clay.
   The Bryans, former NCAA doubles champions from Stanford who will turn 34 on April 29, received a first-round bye. They also won the Monte Carlo title in 2007.
   The Bryans grew up in Camarillo in the Los Angeles area and the Murrays in Scotland.
   Andy Murray won his first ATP World Tour singles title in San Jose at 18 years old in 2006 and repeated the following year. Jamie won the 2007 doubles title in San Jose with Eric Butorac, who played for the Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis in 2008.
   Curiously, the Bryans have never won the San Jose crown in nine attempts. They have reached one final there, losing to former NCAA doubles finalists Scott Lipsky and David Martin of Stanford in 2008.
   In another first-round doubles match in Monte Carlo, Spaniards Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez eliminated Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Jean-Julien Rojer, a product of Netherlands Antilles who will make his Capitals debut in July, 6-4, 6-4.
   Men's Challenger in Sarasota, Fla. -- Sixth-seeded Sam Querrey, a San Francisco native, wore down Horacio Zeballos of Argentina 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round of the $100,000 Sarasota Open on clay.
   Men's Futures in Little Rock, Ark. -- Peter Aarts of the United States and Daniel Chu of Canada edged Dean O'Brien of South Africa and Pedro Zerbini, a former Cal star from Brazil, 6-2, 3-6, 10-8 tiebreak in the first round of the $15,000 St. Vincent Tour de Paul Tournament.
   ITF Women's Circuit in Dothan, Ala. -- In an all-American battle, Julia Cohen and Chi Chi Scholl nipped Alexandra Mueller and the Capitals' Asia Muhammed 4-6, 7-5, 10-5 tiebreak in the opening round of the $50,000 Dothan Pro Classic.
   Colleges -- It's been a big week of Artem Ilyushin.
   On Monday, the Mississippi State senior from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay was named the Southeastern Conference Men's Player of the Week for the second time this season. Ilyushin beat 14th-ranked Nik Scholtz of then-No. 14 Mississippi 6-4, 6-1 at the top position to clinch No. 9 Mississippi State's 4-3 victory Saturday in Oxford, Miss. That gave the Bulldogs (18-5, 9-2) their second straight SEC Western Division championship.
   On Tuesday, Ilyushin cracked the top 10 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings for the first time. He rose two spots to No. 10.
   Meanwhile, three of the top six women's singles players in the nation and two of the top five doubles teams play for Stanford or Cal. In singles, Stanford sophomore Nicole Gibbs ranks fourth, Cardinal junior Mallory Burdette fifth and Cal senior Jana Juricova sixth. In doubles, Burdette and Gibbs are second, and Cal's Annie Goransson and Anett Schutting are fifth.
   Here are this week's rankings of Northern California teams and players in Division I:
   Men's team -- 12. Stanford; 14. Cal; 30. Santa Clara.
   Men's singles -- 10. Ilyushin, Mississippi State; 31. Ryan Thacher, Stanford; 41. Ben McLachlan, Cal; 45. Bradley Klahn, Stanford; 48. Nick Andrews (Folsom), Cal; 58. Carlos Cueto, Cal; 68. Kyle Dandan, Santa Clara.
   Men's doubles -- 5. Andrews and Christoffer Konigsfeldt, Cal; 7. Klahn and Thacher, Stanford; 35. George Coupland and Ilyushin, Mississippi State; 47. Cueto and McLachlan, Cal; 52. John Morrissey and Thacher, Stanford; 84. Ilya Osintev and John Lamble, Santa Clara.
   Women's team -- 5. Stanford; 10. Cal; 42. Saint Mary's; 52. Sacramento State.
   Women's singles -- 4. Gibbs, Stanford; 5. Burdette, Stanford; 6. Juricova, Cal; 11. Zsofi Susanyi, Cal; 22. Denise Dy (San Jose), Washington; 48. Katie Le, Santa Clara; 54. Stacey Tan, Stanford; 57. Tayler Davis (San Jose), Cal; 61. Ellen Tsay, Stanford; 79. Goransson, Cal; 91. Jenny Jullien, Saint Mary's; 93. Schutting, Cal; 105. Catherine Isip, Saint Mary's.
   Women's doubles -- 2. Burdette and Gibbs, Stanford; 5. Goransson and Schutting, Cal; 15. Juricova and Susanyi, Cal; 29. Tan and Tsay, Stanford; 68. Rebeca Delgado and Tatsiana Kapshai, Sac State.

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