Hancock, Eilers Advance At Men's Tennis Regionals

Thursday, October 16

Las Vegas, Nev.

All Day

University of Utah

ITA Mountain Region Championships

Hancock, Eilers Advance At Men's Tennis Regionals

10/16/2008 12:00 AM | Men's Tennis

LAS VEGAS, Nev.-The University of Utah men's tennis team saw Wes Hancock and Phillip Eilers advance in singles play at the ITA Mountain Regional Championships in Las Vegas Nev. Thursday. Also moving on were the doubles teams of Eilers and John Taylor and Timmy Allin and Hancock.

"I think everybody competed hard and we came up with some big wins," commented assistant coach Roeland Brateanu.

No. 17-seeded Hancock defeated No. 15-seeded Evan Urbina of BYU, 7-6, 6-3 in the third round. He went on to top No. 7-seeded Thomas Shubert of BYU in the round of 16, 6-4, 6-7, 7-6. Hancock will play No. 3-seeded Johnny Parkes of New Mexico in the quarterfinals Friday.

In the round of 32, No. 16-seeded Eilers beat No. 24-seeded Artem Kuznetsov of Idaho, 6-0, 3-6, 6-4. He then posted a win over No. 26-seeded Yannick Weihs of Denver in the fourth round, 7-5, 6-3. In the quarterfinals Eliers will face No. 28-seeded Martin Zimmerman of Denver.

In doubles play, the No. 7-seeded doubles team of Eilers and Taylor defeated Fletcher Keyes and Corey Smith of Mexico State, 8-5, in the round of 32 main draw. The duo will play Raydner Ramos and Felipe Raw of Montana in the round of 16.

Allin and Hancock, the No. 9-seeded pair, beat Wes Burros and Attila Toth of UNLV in the second round, 8-6. They will play No. 4-seeded Miles Bugby and Johnny Parkes of New Mexico.

The third Ute to play in singles play Thursday was John Taylor who fell in the round of 32 to No. 5-seeded Kean Feeder of Boise State, 6-2, 6-0.

Suriano and Ouariti-Zerouali were defeated in doubles by No. 8-seeded Urbina and AJ Young of BYU, 8-2, in the round of 16.

In consolation singles play, Utah's Benito Suriano beat teammate Jason Smits in the second round, 7-6, 2-6, 6-4. Suriano was defeated by Blane Shields of Boise State, 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the round-three qualifier. Othman Ouariti-Zerouali was defeated, 4-3, by David Flodberg of Northern Arizona in the second round.

Stephen Jacobs beat Doug Alves of Weber State in the consolation second round, 2-1. He went on to top Edward Salas of New Mexico State, 6-2, 7-6, in the round-three qualifier. Jacobs is set to play No. 22-seeded Kyle Schraeder of Eastern Washington in the third round.

In the second round Allin defeated Matt Braithwaite of Utah State before topping Roman Warias of BYU in the third-round qualifier, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3. In the third round Allin will play No. 24-seeded Artem Kuznetsov of Idaho. Jacobs and Smits defeated the team of Kenneth Norling and Daniel Pez of Eastern Washington, 9-8 in the first round and automatically advanced to the round three qualifier because of a withdraw by Gaston Bottale and Flodberg of Northern Arizona. The Ute duo will face David Cysneiros and Ben DeMarois of Montana Friday.

Suriano and Zerouali won their second round match against Alves and Sascha Kiehne of Weber State, 8-1, and will face Art Karas and Nico Riego De Dios of Eastern Washington in the next round of consolation doubles.

The singles quarterfinal round starts at 12:00 p.m. with consolation singles third and fourth rounds taking place at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., respectively. The doubles round of 16 will begin Friday at 9:00 a.m. with the quarterfinal round at 3:00 p.m.