MORAGA, Calif. – Santa Clara men's tennis teammates
Jesus Tapiador Barajas and
Vasileios Iliopoulos battled in the finals of the singles A draw at the Saint Mary's Invitational on Sunday with Tapiador Barajas prevailing 6-4, 7-6(0) over his roommate to take home the championship.
In the semifinals, Tapiador Barajas beat Stanford's Jack Barber, 7-5, 6-3, and Iliopoulos handled Daniel Krutik of Saint Mary's, 6-2, 6-0, to setup the Bronco showdown.
"Its always difficult playing your teammate and actually roommate in this case but they both did fantastically well to get to the finals and they treated their match the right way. The best way to show respect is to compete against each other. It was a really good match and someone had to lose but a great tournament overall for the Broncos," said Broncos head coach Niall Angus.
Along with the three singles wins between Tapiador Barajas and Iliopoulos, the Broncos picked up two additional victories by
Robert Seby and
Arthur Neuhaus in Sunday's extra match session to raise its total number of singles wins over the three-day tournament to 18. Tapiador Barajas teamed with
Arthur Neuhaus to pick up a 8-5 doubles win over Fresno State's Jeremy Moser and Patrick Pech for the eighth doubles win of the tournament for Santa Clara.
"We had a lot of good singles victories this weekend. We made a statement of where were are at in terms of our singles play but we still have some work on doubles. But it's always great to come home with a title especially with having a fellow Bronco in the final and its been the first singles championship since I've been here," said Angus, who is in his third year at the helm and fourth overall with the program.
With its fall season coming to an end, the Broncos will continue to practice until Nov. 14 in preparation for the dual match season which starts on Jan. 15 against Stanford.
