NorCal trio advance to first-place playoff in UTR $25K

Jenson Brooksby won all six of his sets in round-robin play
in Newport Beach, Calif., losing only 13 games. 2018 photo
by Paul Bauman

   Three Northern California players are among eight men to reach the first-place playoff in the $25,000 UTR Pro Tennis Series in Newport Beach, Calif.

   Advancing with 3-0 records in round-robin play today were 20-year-old Jenson Brooksby of Carmichael, Calif., in the Sacramento area, Stanford freshman Tristan Boyer of Altadena in the Los Angeles region and qualifier Karl Lee, a UCLA signee from Sacramento.

   Brooksby, playing in his first tournament as a pro, defeated Alafia Ayeni, a Cornell senior from San Diego, 6-2, 7-5. Boyer routed Alec Adamson, a former UC Davis standout from Corona Del Mar near Newport Beach, 6-2, 6-1. Lee topped Mousheg Hovhannisyan, 29, of Los Angeles 6-7 (2), 6-1, 6-3.

   Brooksby and Boyer won all six of their sets in round-robin play, losing only 13 and 15 games, respectively.

   Brothers Keenan Mayo, 20, and Aidan Mayo, 17, of Roseville in the Sacramento area advanced to the second-place playoff with 2-1 records, as did Eric Hadigian, a Gonzaga sophomore from Sacramento.

   Timothy Sah, a Stanford senior from San Diego, and qualifier Luke Casper, a Texas A&M signee from Santa Cruz, Calif., reached the third-place playoff with 1-2 records.

   Adamson and Ethan Quinn of Fresno, Calif., were eliminated with 0-3 marks. He won the Orange Bowl 16-and-under doubles title last month.

   Each playoff consists of an eight-player draw and a single-elimination format. 

   WTA Tour — Carol Zhao (Stanford, 2014-16) of Canada and Ena Shibahara, a native of Mountain View, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay Area, lost in the second and final round of qualifying in the $565,530 Abu Dhabi Women's Tennis Open.

   Lucie Hradecka, a two-time Grand Slam champion in women's doubles from the Czech Republic, beat Zhao, playing in her first tournament since September 2019, 7-6 (7), 6-1. No. 12 seed Anastasia Gasanova of Russia topped Shibahara 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.

   In the first round of doubles, Sharon Fichman of Canada and Giuliana Olmos, a product of Fremont in the Bay Area who plays for Mexico, beat Kaitlyn Christian, a native of Orange, Calif., and Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine 6-4, 7-6 (3). Olmos and Christian were USC teammates in 2013 and 2014. 

   Fichman and Olmos are scheduled to face top-seeded Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei and Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic on Friday. Hsieh and Krejcikova, received a first-round bye, are ranked No. 1 and No. 7, respectively, in doubles.