Former Pacific star falls in Los Cabos doubles final

Sem Verbeek returns serve in doubles in the 2016 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger.
Verbeek starred at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Hans Hach Verdugo of Mexico and John Isner of the United States beat Hunter Reese of Knoxville, Tenn., and Sem Verbeek (University of the Pacific, 2013-16) of the Netherlands 5-7, 6-2 [10-4] tonight in the Mifel Open, an ATP 250 hardcourt tournament in Los Cabos, Mexico.

   Both teams were unseeded. Reese, 28, and Verbeek, 27, played in their first ATP final, together or separately.

   The 6-foot-10 (2.08-meter) Isner, 36, made his pro debut in a $15,000 Futures tournament in the Sacramento, Calif., suburb of Shingle Springs in 2007 and won the singles title. Hach Verdugo took the doubles crown in the 2018 Tiburon Challenger in the San Francisco Bay Area with Luke Saville of Australia. 

   In the Los Cabos singles final, top-seeded Cameron Norrie of Great Britain dominated unseeded Brandon Nakashima, 19, of San Diego 6-2, 6-2 for his first ATP title.

   Norrie, who won back-to-back Northern California Challengers in Tiburon and Stockton in 2017, will rise only one notch to a career-high No. 29. 

   Olympics — In the first round of doubles, Belinda Bencic and Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland stunned No. 2 seeds Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara of Japan 6-4, 6-7 (5) [10-5] on a hardcourt in Tokyo. Shibahara, 23, was born in Mountain View in the Bay Area, starred at UCLA and lives in Rancho Palos Verdes in the Los Angeles area.

   Paula Badosa and Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain eliminated Giuliana Olmos and Renata Zarazua of Mexico 6-2, 6-7 (4) [10-7]. Olmos, 28, was born in Austria, grew up in Fremont in the Bay Area and played at USC.

   Sorribes Tormo earlier ousted top-ranked Ashleigh Barty, coming off her Wimbledon title, 6-4, 6-3 in the opening round of singles. Badosa, 23, reached the singles quarterfinals of the French Open and the fourth round at Wimbledon this year. 

   ATP Challenger Tour — Dennis Novikov of San Jose, Calif., won his third Cary (N.C.) Challenger title and second straight in doubles.

   Top-seeded Novikov and Christian Harrison of Bradenton, Fla., outclassed unseeded Petros Chrysochos of Cyprus and Michail Pervolarakis of Greece 6-3, 6-3 on a hardcourt in the $52,080 Atlantic Tire Championships.

   Novikov won his ninth Challenger doubles championship, first of the year and first with Harrison. Novikov won the Cary doubles title last November with Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia and took the singles title in 2015.

Medvedev tops Thiem for title; Sherif falls in final

   Daniil Medvedev won the biggest title of his career today, defeating Dominic Thiem 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4 in the Nitto ATP Finals in London.

   The 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Medvedev, a 24-year-old Russian, also beat five-time champion Novak Djokovic and second-ranked Rafael Nadal during the week. Medvedev, seeded fourth, became the first player to sweep the top three players in the world rankings in the season finale, according to atptour.com.

   Medvedev, who went 0-3 in his ATP Finals debut last year, also became the fifth consecutive first-time champion in the indoor hardcourt tournament. He followed Stefanos Tsitsipas last year, Alexander Zverev in 2018, Grigor Dimitrov in 2017 and Andy Murray in 2016.

   Medvedev made $1.564 million, and Thiem took home $861,000.

   In the doubles final, fifth-seeded Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands and Nikola Mektic of Croatia topped seventh-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria and Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France 6-2, 3-6 [10-5] for their first title together.

   Koolhof and Mektic, who joined forces at Adelaide in January, split $254,500. They reached the U.S. Open final, losing to Mate Pavic of Croatia and Bruno Soares of Brazil.

   ITF Women's Circuit — Top-seeded Kaia Kanepi of Estonia rolled to a 6-3, 6-2 victory over second-seeded Maiar Sherif Ahmed Abdelaziz (Fresno State, 2015-16) of Egypt to win the $25,000 Open Gran Canaria on clay in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, off the coast of northwestern Africa.

   Since losing in the second round of the French Open, Kanepi has won 15 of 16 matches, all in $25,000 tournaments, with three titles. The 35-year-old veteran has reached the quarterfinals of the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open twice each and been ranked as high as No. 15 in 2012.

   Sherif, 24, lost for the first time in 12 matches. She won a $100,000 clay-court tournament in Charleston, S.C., as a qualifier two weeks ago.

   ATP Challenger Tour — Unseeded Brandon Nakashima, 19, of San Diego beat fourth-seeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India 6-3, 6-4 in the $52,080 Orlando (Fla.) Open for his first Challenger title.

   Nakashima, who will soar 37 places to a career-high No. 165 on Monday, saved all eight break points against him and did not lose a set in the hardcourt tournament. He ousted top-seeded Thiago Monteiro in the second round and eighth-seeded Mackenzie McDonald, a San Francisco Bay Area product, in the quarterfinals.

   Gunneswaran, a 31-year-old left-hander, lost a Challenger final for the second consecutive week. He fell to Denis Kudla last Sunday in Cary, N.C.

   Nakashima reached his first Challenger semifinal in Fairfield, Calif., last fall, and Gunneswaran advanced to the semis of the 2017 Tiburon, Calif., Challenger. Both were $100,000 tournaments.

   In the final round of qualifying for the $52,080 Lima Challenger on clay, fifth-seeded Thiago Agustin Tirante, 19, of Argentina beat top-seeded Collin Altamirano, 24, of Sacramento, Calif., 6-4, 6-4. Altamirano, who received a first-round bye, played his first match since March.

Djokovic reaches ATP semis; McDonald falls in Florida

Novak Djokovic, playing at Indian Wells in 2017, avenged a loss to Alexander
Zverev in the title match of the 2018 ATP Finals. Photo by Mal Taam

   Top-ranked Novak Djokovic beat fifth-seeded Alexander Zverev 6-3, 7-6 (4) today to reach the semifinals of the Nitto ATP Finals in London.

   Djokovic, a five-time champion, avenged a loss to Zverev, a 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) German, in the 2018 final of the indoor hardcourt tournament.

   Djokovic finished 2-1 and Zverev 1-2 in the four-man Group Tokyo 1970. The ATP Finals began 50 years ago in Tokyo.

   Both players have come under fire recently. Djokovic was defaulted from the U.S. Open in September for flicking a ball in anger and accidentally hitting a line judge in the throat. Zverev has denied accusations of domestic abuse by his former girlfriend Olga Sharypova.

   In Saturday's semifinals, Djokovic is scheduled to face third-seeded Dominic Thiem at 6 a.m. PST (Tennis Channel), and second-seeded Rafael Nadal is set to take on fourth-seeded Daniil Medvedev not before noon. 

   In a doubles semifinal, second-seeded Rajeev Ram, a 36-year-old volunteer assistant coach at the University of California, Berkeley from Carmel, Ind., and Joe Salisbury of Great Britain will meet seventh-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria and Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France at 10 a.m.

   ATP Challenger Tour — Unseeded Brandon Nakashima, 19, of San Diego eliminated eighth-seeded Mackenzie McDonald, a 25-year-old product of Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, 6-3, 7-6 (8) on another windy day in the quarterfinals of the $52,080 Orlando (Fla.) Open.

   Nakashima, who ousted top-seeded Thiago Monteiro of Brazil 6-4, 6-3 in the second round, won seven straight games from 1-3 in the opening set of his first career match against McDonald, playing on his adopted home courts at the USTA National Campus. 

   In the second set, Nakashima saved a set point serving at 5-6 with a backhand passing shot down the line and later converted his fourth match point.

   McDonald won the first of his two Challenger singles titles in Fairfield, Calif., 38 miles (61.2 kilometers) northeast of Piedmont, in 2017. Nakashima reached his first Challenger semifinal last fall in Fairfield.

   Nakashima is scheduled to meet unseeded Mitchell Krueger of Dallas on Saturday after the 8 a.m. PST semifinal between fourth-seeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India and unseeded Christopher Eubanks of Atlanta. Both matches will be streamed live.

   Krueger, 26, defeated qualifier Alexander Ritschard of Switzerland 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-1. Krueger, a quarterfinalist in the $100,000 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger in 2015 and 2016, topped Nakashima 7-6 (7), 7-5 in the first round of qualifying for the 2018 Indian Wells Challenger in their only previous meeting.

   Gunneswaran, a 31-year-old left-hander who reached last week's final in Cary, N.C., routed sixth-seeded Dmitry Popko, a Russia native who plays for Kazakhstan, 6-0, 6-3. 

   The 6-foot-7 (2.01-meter) Eubanks, 24, subdued second-seeded Denis Kudla, an Arlington, Va., resident who won the Cary title, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 6-3 in 3 hours, 5 minutes.

   Eubanks, who trailed by a service break in the second set, blasted 17 aces, committed 10 double faults and saved 16 of 18 break points against him.

   Gunneswaran and Eubanks will meet for the first time. They reached the semifinals of $100,000 tournaments in Tiburon (2017) and Aptos (2018), respectively, in Northern California. 

   ITF Women's Circuit — Second-seeded Maiar Sherif Ahmed Abdelaziz (Fresno State, 2015-16) of Egypt beat Lara Selden, a 21-year-old qualifier from Belgium, 7-5, 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the $25,000 Open Gran Canaria on clay in Las Palmas de Gran Carania, off the coast of northwestern Africa.

   Sherif, who won a $100,000 clay-court tournament in Charleston, S.C., as a qualifier two weeks ago, extended her winning streak to 10 matches. She will play another 21-year-old, Jule Niemeier of Germany.

   In the other semifinal, top-seeded Kaia Kanepi of Estonia will meet sixth-seeded Richel Hogenkamp of the Netherlands.

   Kanepi, 35, has reached the quarterfinals of the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open twice each and been ranked as high as No. 15 in 2012. Hogenkamp, 28, climbed to a career-high No. 94 in 2017.

Vegas, with NorCal stars, loses TeamTennis opener

Sam Querrey, a 32-year-old San Francisco native, lost to
18-year-old Brandon Nakashima of the Chicago Smash
5-3 in men's singles today. File photo by Paul Bauman 

   The Vegas Rollers, featuring four players with strong Northern California ties, were unable to overcome a dismal start in their World TeamTennis season opener today.
    Vegas trailed 10-4 after the first two sets, accounting for the difference in its 24-18 (1-0 extended play) loss to the expansion Chicago Smash at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.V. The match was televised on the CBS Sports Network while the ATP and WTA tours are shut down until next month because of the coronavirus pandemic.
   Chicago's Brandon Nakashima, 18, of San Diego upset Sam Querrey, a 32-year-old San Francisco native, 5-3 in the first set. The 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Querrey, who ranks eighth in aces since ATP Match Stats began in 1991, double-faulted on break point at 3-3.
   Fresno, Calif., product Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion and 2018 French Open runner-up, then routed Monica Puig, the singles gold medalist in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, 5-1 to give Chicago a 10-4 lead. Puig, who underwent elbow surgery in December, has not played on the WTA tour since October.
   Each of the three doubles sets went to a tiebreaker, with Vegas winning two. Competing for the Rollers were former Stanford stars Bob Bryan, Mike Bryan (both 1997-98) and Kristie Ahn (2011-14). Playing for the Smash was Rajeev Ram, a 36-year-old volunteer assistant coach at the University of California, Berkeley during breaks from the pro tour.
   Players and coaches replaced ballkids, and fans, wearing masks, were separated in the 2,500-seat stadium at The Greenbrier, which is hosting the entire three-week season. A chair umpire officiated, but there were no line judges.
   Vegas will play the Orlando Storm (1-0), led by two-time Australian Open quarterfinalist Tennys Sandgren, on Monday at 10 a.m. PDT on ESPN2. Orlando beat the two-time defending champion Springfield (Mo.) Lasers 21-18 (1-0 extended play) today.

CHICAGO SMASH 24, VEGAS ROLLERS 18 (1-0 EXTENDED PLAY)

   Men's singles – Brandon Nakashima (Chi) def. Sam Querrey 5-3.
   Women's singles – Sloane Stephens (Chi) def. Monica Puig 5-1.
   Mixed doubles – Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Rajeev Ram (Chi) def. Asia Muhammad and Mike Bryan 5-4 (5-3).
   Women's doubles – Kristie Ahn and Muhammad (LV) def. Eugenie Bouchard and Mattek-Sands 5-4 (5-3).
   Men's doubles – Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan (LV) def. Nakashima and Ram 5-4 (5-2).
   Extended play – Nakashima and Ram (Chi) def. Bryan and Bryan 1-0.

Obscure O'Connell to face top seed in Fairfield final

   At least twice during today's first semifinal in the Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger, commentator Ken Thomas asked on the live stream, "Who is this guy? Who is Christopher O'Connell?"
   It's a good question.
   O'Connell, a 25-year-old Australian, seems to come out of nowhere to excel in Fairfield. A semifinalist at Solano Community College as a qualifier in 2017, he reached the final of the $108,320 NorthBay Healthcare Men's Pro Championship with a 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over unseeded Kevin King of Atlanta.
   O'Connell, seeded 12th at a career-high No. 192, is scheduled to meet Steve Johnson, seeded first at No. 99, for the first time on Sunday at 11 a.m. O'Connell will jump to at least No. 160 in Monday's updated rankings.
   Johnson, a 29-year-old resident of Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles area, beat Brandon Nakashima, an 18-year-old wild card from San Diego, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.
   O'Connell, a 6-foot (1.83-meter) right-hander with a one-handed backhand, hasn't lost a set in the tournament. He will play in his second consecutive singles final and – brace yourself – 13th of the year. But seven have come in $15,000 tournaments, three in $25Ks and two in $50,000-plus tourneys in remote outposts around the world.

   O'Connell is 4-8 in those finals, including a loss on clay in Sibiu, Romania, three weeks ago in his last tournament.

   It hasn't helped O'Connell's career that he missed several months in 2017 with pneumonia and six months last year with knee tendinitis.
   Johnson, meanwhile, is trying to regain the form that took him to a career-high No. 21 in 2016.

   Sunday's doubles final, which follows the singles title match, will feature two adopted Northern Californians. Fourth-seeded Andre Goransson (Cal, 2014-17) of Sweden and Sem Verbeek (University of the Pacific in Stockton, 2013-16) of the Netherlands will play unseeded Darian King of Bardados and Peter Polansky of Canada.
   Here are the updated Fairfield singles and doubles draws. Live streaming is available.

Nakashima, 18, reaches first Challenger semifinal

   Brandon Nakashima, an 18-year-old wild card from San Diego, beat fourth-seeded Taro Daniel of Japan 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5) on Friday in the quarterfinals of the $108,320 NorthBay Healthcare Men's Pro Championship at Solano Community College in Fairfield, Calif.
   Nakashima became the youngest American man to reach a Challenger semifinal since Taylor Fritz won the 2015 Fairfield Challenger at 17. Fritz is now ranked No. 29 at age 21.
   Nakashima, a University of Virginia sophomore, is playing in only his fifth professional tournament of the year. He advanced to the quarterfinals in the $108,320 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger two weeks ago, losing to Thai-Son Kwiatkowski in a third-set tiebreaker. Kwiatkowski won the 2017 NCAA singles title as a University of Virginia senior.
   Daniel reached the quarterfinals in Tokyo on the ATP World Tour last week, upsetting then-No. 14 Borna Coric in the first round, to rise 16 spots to No. 111. He is 1-0 against Novak Djokovic and has been ranked as high as No. 64 in August last year.
   Nakashima will skyrocket at least 222 places to No. 487 in Monday's updated rankings. He is scheduled to face top-seeded Steve Johnson for the first time today not before noon in a matchup of Southern Californians.
   Johnson, a Los Angeles-area resident who has slumped from a career-high No. 21 in 2016 to No. 99, trounced ninth-seeded Darian King of Barbados 6-1, 6-1 in 62 minutes.
   In today's first semifinal at 11 a.m., unseeded Kevin King, an Atlanta native and resident ranked No. 399, will meet 12th-seeded Christopher O'Connell, an Australian ranked a career-high No. 192, for the first time.
   Kevin King, a 28-year-old former Georgia Tech All-American, eliminated eighth-seeded Peter Polansky of Canada, 6-3, 7-6 (10) after knocking off former top-70 players Ernesto Escobedo, seeded 15th, in the second round and Denis Kudla, seeded second, in the third round.
   Kevin King, a 6-foot-3 (1.91-meter) left-hander, slugged 12 aces, had six double faults and put in 69 percent of his first serves. He won 75 percent of the points (43 of 57) on his first serve and 58 percent (15 of 26) on his second delivery.
   Kevin King has been ranked as high as No. 162 in May last year. He reached the second round in Atlanta on the ATP World Tour in July as a qualifier, shocking former world No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov in the first round. Later in the summer, Dimitrov ousted Roger Federer in the U.S. Open to reach his third Grand Slam semifinal.
   O'Connell dispatched Jack Draper 6-2, 6-3 to reach the Fairfield semifinals for the second time in three years and end the 17-year-old Briton's winning streak at eight matches.
   The 25-year-old O'Connell, only 6 feet (1.83 meters), served even better than King. O'Connell blasted 17 aces, committed only one double fault and put in 70 percent of his first serves. He won 89 percent of the points (33 of 37) on his first serve and 50 percent (eight of 16) on his second.
   O'Connell has played in a whopping 12 singles finals this year (two in $50,000-plus tournaments, three in $25Ks and seven in $15Ks), winning four.
   None of the Fairfield semifinalists has lost a set in the tournament. O'Connell, in fact, hasn't lost more than four games in a set.
   Here are the updated Fairfield singles and doubles draws and today's schedule. Live streaming is available.

Kevin King takes out second-seeded Kudla in Fairfield

Second-seeded Denis Kudla lost to fellow American
Kevin King 6-2, 6-3 today in the Fairfield (Calif.)
Challenger. File photo by Paul Bauman

   Unseeded Kevin King of Atlanta dispatched second-seeded Denis Kudla of Arlington, Va., 6-2, 6-3 today to reach the quarterfinals of the $108,320 NorthBay Healthcare Men's Pro Championship at Solano Community College in Fairfield, Calif.
   King, a 6-foot-3 (1.91-meter) left-hander ranked No. 399, evened his career record against Kudla, ranked No. 107, at 1-1.
   King, a 28-year-old former Georgia Tech All-American, reached the second round in Atlanta on the ATP World Tour in July as a qualifier, shocking former world No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov in the first round. Later in the summer, Dimitrov ousted Roger Federer in the U.S. Open to reach his third Grand Slam semifinal.
   Kudla, 27, advanced to the third round of the U.S. Open this past summer, losing to defending champion Novak Djokovic in straight sets.
   King is scheduled to face eighth-seeded Peter Polansky of Canada for the first time on Friday. The 31-year-old Polansky, ranked No. 163, beat 10th-seeded Nicola Kuhn of Spain 6-4, 6-4.
   Brandon Nakashima, an 18-year-old wild card from San Diego, eliminated sixth-seeded James Duckworth of Australia 7-6 (5), 7-5.
   Nakashima, a sophomore at the University of Virginia, also reached the quarterfinals of the $108,320 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger two weeks ago. He will meet Japan's Taro Daniel, seeded fourth and ranked No. 111, for the first time.
   Daniel, 26, escaped with a 1-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over 16th-seeded Maxime Cressy, a Paris native who plays for the United States. Daniel is 1-0 against Novak Djokovic. UCLA's Cressy and Keegan Smith, both 6-foot-6 (1.98 meters), won the NCAA doubles title in May in Orlando, Fla.
   In Friday's other quarterfinals, top-seeded Steve Johnson of Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles area will face ninth-seeded Darian King of Barbados, and 12th-seeded Christopher O'Connell of Australia will play Jack Draper, 17, of Great Britain.
   The 6-foot-3 (1.91-meter) Draper extended his winning streak to eight matches with a 6-3, 7-6 (1) victory over 30-year-old Donald Young in a matchup of left-handers. Young, 30, has tumbled from a career-high No. 38 in 2012 to No. 233.
   Draper won a $25,000 tournament on an indoor hardcourt in Shrewsbury, Great Britain, two weeks ago and upset 14th-seeded Jack Sock on Wednesday night. Sock has plunged a high of No. 8 in 2017 to No. 210.
   The 29-year-old Johnson, ranked No. 99, has never lost more than three games in a set in two career matches against the 27-year-old King, ranked No. 171.
   The 192nd-ranked O'Connell, a Fairfield semifinalist as a qualifier in 2017, and Draper, ranked No. 340, will meet for the first time. 
   Here are the updated Fairfield singles and doubles draws and Friday's schedule. Live streaming is available.

For top seed Paul, narrow win in Tiburon tastes good

Tommy Paul, playing in Tiburon last year, took a swig
of beer after edging Gonzalo Escobar in Friday's quar-
terfinals. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Tommy Paul didn't wait long to celebrate his narrow victory over Gonzalo Escobar.
   After shaking hands with Escobar, Paul walked to the side of the court opposite the chair umpire and took a swig of beer from an unattended pitcher sitting on the first row of the stands.
   The top-seeded Paul, from Greenville, N.C., edged the unseeded Escobar, from Ecuador, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (2) on Friday in the quarterfinals of the $108,320 First Republic Tiburon Challenger at the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
   Paul, the only top-100 player in the field at No. 87, is scheduled to meet another Ecuadorian, fourth-seeded Emilio Gomez, today at about 4:30 p.m. Gomez, ranked No. 158, beat unseeded Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton, Fla., 6-3, 1-6, 6-2.
   Gomez, the son of 1990 French Open champion Andres Gomez, defeated Paul, the 2015 French Open boys singles champion, 6-2, 6-2 on clay in the final of the $54,160 Tallahassee (Fla.) Challenger in April in their only previous meeting.
   In today's first semifinal at 2:30 p.m., eighth-seeded Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia will play 14th-seeded Thai-Son Kwiatkowski of Charlottesville, Va., for the first time.
   Kokkinakis, ranked No. 183, dispatched 16th-seeded Maxime Cressy, a 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Paris native who plays for the United States, 6-4, 6-2.
   Kokkinakis reached a career-high No. 69 at age 18 in 2015 before injuries derailed his career. He shocked Roger Federer in the second round in Miami and won the $100,000 Aptos (Calif.) Challenger last year.
   Cressy and Keegan Smith of UCLA won the NCAA doubles title in May.
   Kwiatkowski, the 2017 NCAA singles champion from the University of Virginia, nipped wild card Brandon Nakashima, a Virginia sophomore from San Diego, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (6).
   Here are the updated Tiburon singles and doubles draws and today's schedule.

Kwiatkowski tops third-seeded Giron in $108K Tiburon

   In a matchup of former NCAA singles champions, 14th-seeded Thai-Son Kwiatkowski of Charlottesville, Va., outlasted third-seeded Marcos Giron of Thousand Oaks in the Los Angeles area 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 today to reach the quarterfinals of the $108,320 First Republic Tiburon Challenger at the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
   Kwiatkowski (University of Virginia) and Giron (UCLA) won the NCAA singles crown in 2017 and 2014, respectively.
   Kwiatkowski improved to 2-0 against Giron, also winning 6-4 in the third set in the first round of qualifying in Fairfield, Calif., last October.
   Also losing today were fifth-seeded Mikael Torpegaard of Denmark, seventh seed and 2016 Tiburon champion Darian King of Barbados and 10th-seeded Christopher Eubanks of Atlanta.
   Gonzalo Escobar of Ecuador toppled Torpegaard, a former Ohio State All-American, 6-4, 7-6 (9). Torpegaard reached the 2018 NCAA singles quarterfinals and doubles final with Martin Joyce.
   Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton, Fla., eliminated King 1-6, 6-4, 6-0 after knocking off 12th seed and 2013 Tiburon champion Peter Polansky of Canada on Wednesday. Polansky, 31, won last week's $54,160 Columbus (Ohio) Challenger on an indoor hard court.
   Wild card Brandon Nakashima, a Virginia sophomore from San Diego, surprised the 6-foot-7 (2.01-meter) Eubanks 7-6 (5), 7-5 one day after ousting sixth seed and defending champion Michael Mmoh.
   Only three of the top 13 seeds reached Friday's quarterfinals. Advancing were top-seeded Tommy Paul of Greenville, N.C., fourth-seeded Emilio Gomez of Ecuador and eighth-seeded Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia.
   Gomez's father, Andres Gomez, won the 1990 French Open. Kokkinakis stunned Roger Federer last year in Miami.
   Here are the updated Tiburon singles and doubles draws and Friday's schedule.

Defending champ, 2013 winner fall in Tiburon openers

   Two Tiburon champions lost their opening matches in this year's Challenger, and a third nearly joined them.
   Wild card Brandon Nakashima, a University of Virginia sophomore from San Diego, ousted sixth seed and defending champion Michael Mmoh of Bradenton, Fla., 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 today in the second round at the Tiburon Peninsula Club. All 16 singles seeds received first-round byes.
   Mmoh, also the Tiburon runner-up in 2016, cracked the top 100 for the first time at No. 96 by winning last year's tournament for his second title in two weeks. But the 21-year-old son of former pro player Tony Mmoh will plummet 79 places to No. 287 on Monday. Michael Mmoh sat out for four months early this year because of injuries.
   Also today, Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton beat 12th seed and 2013 Tiburon champion Peter Polansky of Canada 6-1, 6-4. Polansky, 31, won last week's $54,160 Columbus (Ohio) Challenger on an indoor hard court.
   Bangoura also surprised fourth-seeded Dustin Brown, a German who's 2-0 against Rafael Nadal, in the first round at Tiburon in 2015 as a qualifier before losing to Mackenzie McDonald of nearby Piedmont in the second round.
   Seventh-seeded Darian King, the 2016 Tiburon champion from Barbados, topped another 21-year-old American, Ulises Blanch, 2-6, 7-6 (2), 7-5.
   Meanwhile, Ecuador's Roberto Quiroz, a Columbus semifinalist last week, dispatched second-seeded Denis Kudla, a 27-year-old American who lost a thriller in the 2015 Tiburon final, 6-3, 6-2 in 61 minutes.
   Top-seeded Tommy Paul of Greenville, N.C., beat wild card Brandon Holt, a USC senior and the son of International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2. Paul also defeated Holt in the second round in Tiburon last year, 5-0, retired (shoulder).
   Here are the updated Tiburon singles and doubles draws and Thursday's schedule.