For Gaucho tennis, the 54th annual Southern California Intercollegiate Championships ended a day early, when senior Alex Konigsfeldt fell to USC’s Jaak Poldma in the semifinals.

[media-credit name=”Daily Nexus File Photo” align=”alignleft” width=”196″][/media-credit]“We were really pleased [with Alex],” Head Coach Marty Davis said. “He had a disappointing showing at [ITA] Regionals. It meant a lot to him to win some matches and play well.”

For Konigsfeldt, the tournament kicked off with two wins, beginning with Azusa Pacific’s Janosch Apelt and ending with a 6-3, 6-2 rout of BYU’s Patrick Kawka, who had just beaten the #2 seed Daniel Kosakowski of UCLA earlier that day. By the time he reached the quarterfinals, Konigsfeldt looked like he had a good chance to reach the finals and join tennis legends like Arthur Ashe as winners of the prestigious tournament.

“I was just trying to stay one match at a time,” Konigsfeldt said. “I knew the guy who I was going to play in the quarters, so I just went out there and played hard.”

However, Konigsfeldt’s run at the title fell short. Hewas unable to get anything going in the semifinals against the 4th seeded Poldma of USC, who won the first set 6-3 and the second 6-2.

“He was returning well but my serve wasn’t as good as the previous matches,” Konigsfeldt said. “I only held service once in the whole match.”

Though he didn’t quite reach his ultimate goal, Konigsfeldt was pleased with the way he played.

“It’s always feels good to win a couple of matches and get some confidence going,” Konigsfeldt said.

In doubles play, Johnson and Jurgensen beat Sam Gould and Ryan Mayer of UCI 8-3 in their first match but were then knocked out by UCSD’s Elliott and Austin West. In Konigsfeldt’s and Recknagel’s first match, they found themselves in the semifinals against the eventual championship team of Poldma and Sundling, who took down the two Gauchos by a score of 8-3.

“Ben and Alex lost serve three times in that doubles set,” Davis said. “In men’s tennis you’re supposed to hold serve. Throughout the tournament they lost their serve quite a bit so serving is something we need to work on for both Ben and Alex.”

UCSB will host the UCSB Classic this Friday through Sunday. The tournament opens at 2 p.m. on Friday and will conclude the Gauchos’ fall season.

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