Cal Poly Tennis’ Jack Cross won the UCSB Fall Classic open singles title, defeating Santa Clara’s Tiago Boschmans in the championship match and capping a strong weekend for the Mustangs.
Cross earned his spot in the final with three straight tournament wins. He rallied past UCLA’s Leo von Bismarck, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, in his opening match before outlasting UC Santa Barbara’s Pavel Bushuev, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4. Cross then defeated UC San Diego’s Cayden Wang, 6-4, 7-5, to advance to the final match.
Alongside Cross in Flight B, freshman Evan Simon battled from behind to defeat UC Irvine’s Huang Rui Ning, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6, before falling to UCSB’s Lorenzo Brunkow in the quarterfinals, 6-7, 6-7. Fifth-year Ernst Gouws fell in the opening round to Santa Clara’s Boschmans, 2-5, 6-7.
In Flight A, Raz Haviv opened with a loss against Santa Clara’s Lukas Maskow, 6-4, 3-6, 1-6. Jovan Lubbe unfortunately had to forfeit after an injury in his opening-round match.
Freshman Jack Lukic fell 6-4, 6-0 in his Flight C opener. Leo Matthysen and Denzel Seetso each earned first-round wins but fell in the quarterfinals.
For doubles, Cal Poly faced a difficult draw. Matthysen and Lubbe fell just short to UCLA’s Bengt Johan Reinhard and von Bismarck, pushing to a 7-8 decision in the Flight A opening round.
In Flight B, Haviv and Simon opened with an 8-2 win to UC San Diego’s Ivan Pflueger and Andrew Beceiro, but fell to LMU’s Tristan Messerli and Darius Tamaddon 4-8. The pair returned for Sunday extra matches, but they lost 8-6 to Pepperdine’s Will Steinberg and Photos Photiades.
Gouws and Seetso competed in Flight C, falling 8-6 to UCSB’s Karel Fromel and Carson Lee. The Mustang duo also dropped a tight 8-7 decision to UC Irvine’s Yashwin Krishnakur and Huang Rui Ning in Sunday extra play. The Mustangs will return to the court this Thursday for ITA Regionals in Malibu.