[Men's Tennis] No.12 Hawks Top No.19 Toppers In Round One Of Men's Tennis National Championships

MOBILE, Ala. – The No.12 ranked San Diego Christian College Hawks men's tennis team easily defeated the No.19 Blue Mountain College Toppers (Miss.) 4-0 in the first round of the NAIA National Championships on Tuesday.

San Diego Christian rolled in doubles action, as the defending doubles national champion team of Chris Papa and Ivan Smith cruised to a 6-1 victory over BMC'c Bernardo Tajada and Philippe Labbe. The Hawks pairing of Nick Nienhaus and Julius Kaufmann secured the early point by landing a 6-4 victory over the Topper's Danko Yordanov and Juan Silva. Robin Van den Hoek and David Samardzija were up 5-3, in their match when the point was secured.

In singles action, Chris Papa and Nick Neinhaus got the Hawks early points by soundly defeating Blue Mountain's Tajada (6-4, 6-2) and Jonas Mathiasen (6-2, 6-1) respectively.

Ivan Smith's 6-2, 7-6 (7-1) tiebreak win over Labbe completed the sweep and sent San Diego Christian College onto the second round.

In the unfinished matches, Robin Van den Hoek was up 6-3, 5-4, David Samardzija was on top 7-5, 4-2 and Julius Kaufman was down 3-6, 2-5 when the match came to an end.

UP NEXT

San Diego Christian College advances to face No. 5 Reinhardt (Ga.) Eagles on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. PST (1:00 p.m. CST).