Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
Bulldog Classic
Irie, Jackson and Veerepalli Capture Titles at Bulldog Classic
10/15/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Oct. 15, 2006
FRESNO, Calif. - Freshman Tejesvi Veerepalli won in the third-set tiebreaker to take home the 2006 Bulldog Classic Flight B singles title, beating San Diego's Matt Ozurovich 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5). Sophomore Greg Jackson captured the second title of the day for Fresno State, beating Fresno Pacific's Victor Medina 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the Flight C singles final.
Veerepalli trailed 4-3 before winning three straight games in the second set. In the third set, both Veerepalli and Ozurovich held serve until the score was tied at five. Ozurovich broke serve to take a 6-5 lead, but Veerepalli answered to knot the score at six. In the tiebreaker, Veerepalli took an early 4-1 advantage. Ozurovich rallied to eventually tie the score at five before Veerepalli took the final two points and the match.
Jackson trailed 5-4 in the third after Medina broke his serve. Jackson battled back, braking serve, holding and then braking again to win the match.
"It feels really good to win today after putting in a lot of hard work," Jackson said. "Today, I played better mentally. In the past I might have lost a few points here and there because of mental errors, but today I was stronger in that aspect of my game."
Veerepalli and senior Charles Irie finished off the day with an 8-6 victory over Loredo and Van Dillen of Sacramento State in the Flight B doubles final.
"We had three opportunities to win titles today, and we won all three," said head coach Jay Udwadia. "I was really excited to see some of our newcomers play this weekend and I was pleased with the results. We still have a lot of room for improvement, but overall everyone competed hard this weekend."
Kaes Van't Hof of USC beat teammate Jason McNaughton 7-5, 6-3 in the Flight A singles final. Fischer and Ricks of Washington beat Foelz and Medina of Fresno Pacific 8-2 in the Flight A doubles final.
The Bulldogs head to Stanford next weekend for the annual Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regionals Oct. 20-24.
