By Laurean Love
Reporter
Baylor women’s tennis senior Diana Nakic had a three-set win to advance through qualifying to the main draw of the ITA/Riviera Women’s All-American Championship on Wednesday in Pacific Palisades, Calif. The men’s tennis team’s journey came to an end on Thursday in the main draw of the ITA Men’s All-American Championships in Tulsa, Okla.
Senior Diana Nakic, who is ranked 28th, defeated back-to-back ranked opponents on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Nakic won against Tennessee’s Brynn Boren, who is ranked 31st. Nakic won the first set 7-5, lost 6-1 in the second, and won the third 6-3 to clinch the victory.
Nakic will take on USC’s Danielle Lao, ranked 16th, in the first round of the 32-player main draw that begins Thursday.
Seniors Nina Secerbegovic and Sona Novakova will enter the main draw in singles and doubles. Secerbegovic is ranked 23rd and Novakova is ranked 13th. In doubles Novakova and Secerbegovic are ranked 10th and will play Stanford’s Mallory Burdette and Nicole Gibbs in the first round of a 24-team doubles field.
For the men’s team, junior Roberto Maytin split two singles matches and lost a doubles match with his partner, freshman Marko Krickovic, in a tiebreaker.
In the round of 64 in singles, Maytin, ranked 43rd, was able to fight off three match points in the third set to defeat UCLA’s 35th-ranked Clay Thompson 6-3. However, Maytin lost the second set 6-4.
Thompson had two match points at 5-4 in the third set and was up 6-3 in the tiebreaker, but Maytin was able to eventually take the match by posting an 8-6 tiebreaker score.
Maytin lost to Oklahoma’s Peerakit Siributwong in the second round (6-2, 7-5), which ended his run in singles.
In doubles round of 32 Maytin and Krickovic, ranked No. 23 nationally, played No. 13 Christopher Aumueller and Benedikt Lindheim of Nebraska.
The Bears were down 3-6, but were able to come back and win four straight games and force a tiebreaker. However, they were not able to hold them off as they won the match 9-8 after winning the tiebreaker 8-6.
The men’s team will play in Austin at the Austin Future tournament Monday through Oct. 15.
