Jan. 19, 2002

Los Angeles, CA - The 2002 Loyola Marymount University men's tennis team got into the swing of the new year with a 5-2 victory over the San Francisco Dons at LMU's tennis complex Saturday afternoon. LMU's three doubles teams opened up the match with victories, followed by the singles matches, with only two Lions losses.

The Lions duo Tigran Martirosyan and Leopold Graeubig already earned preseason recognition as they entered the match ranked No. 49 in the ITA poll. They defeated Jorgen Arnesen and Mason Fuller as the top-seeded doubles team 8-3. Johannes Asuja and Anthony Evrard defeated Axel Elvik and Lippirt 9-8, followed by Beau Berglund and Ryan Gerstner's 8-2 victory over Pablo Pires de Aleida and Christian Dyvik.

LMU's No. 1 seed, Martirosyan, dominated his match over USF's Anderson, taking the straight-set win (6-2, 6-1). Graeubig was also successful in his match as the Lions' second seed, defeating Pires de Almeida in two straight sets, 6-2, 6-0. Asuja played as the third seed for the Lions, however he was defeated in a third-set tie breaker by Fuller (2-6, 6-3, 3-6). Evrard played fourth for the Lions, and was defeated by the Dons' Elvik in a tie breaker (4-6, 7-6, 7-10). In the fifth seed match Berglund defeated Dyvik in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5. Rounding out the day for the Lions was Ryan Gerstner, who held on for the third-set tie breaking win over Sean Dizon (6-2, 4-6, 18-16).

Head Coach, Nik DeVore noted after the game "I was particularly proud of the was Beau, Tigran and Leo played today," he continued, "they all played very focused throughout the match, and competed at a pretty high level considering it was the first match of the season."