Ricks, Slovic advance in Pac-10 tournament

The weather is 80 degress and sunny in Ojai, Calif., but the Husky men's tennis team won't be spending the day by the pool tanning. With only four days to play out two 32-player singles draws and two 16-team doubles draws, the men will be kept busy on the court, and the only tans they'll be getting will be where their T-shirts and socks end.

In yesterday's earliest matches, the Huskies stood their ground against some of the top players in the Pac-10. Senior Alex Slovic [HTML_REMOVED] Washington's No. 1 singles player [HTML_REMOVED] won his first-round match handily, defeating Arizona State's T.J. Bellama 7-6 (2), 6-4. Heading into the Pac-10 Championships, Slovic was fourth in career-singles wins at the UW with 93, and this tournament will afford him the opportunity to move up that list even further. Slovic is now also one win away from tying Matt Hanlin for the record number of career-combined doubles and singles wins as a Husky. Today's victory puts Slovic at 177.

The second Husky entrant in the Pac-10 singles draw, Andy Kuharszky also won his morning match in straight sets, defeating Alex Cornelissen of Oregon 6-3, 6-4, but was defeated in his next match by defending Pac-10 singles champion Matt Bruch of Stanford.

Senior Daniel Chu was eliminated in his first match as well by UCLA's Mathieu Dehaine, falling in three sets 6-4, 0-6, 6-3.

All three Huskies in the Invitational singles draw won their first matches. Senior Michael Ricks turned in two especially impressive performances to advance to the quarterfinals. Ricks knocked off ASU's Francois Van der Merwe in straight sets, 7-5, 7-6 (5) and Kallim Stewart of California. After falling behind and losing the first set to Stewart, 1-6, Ricks ripped off two straight sets of 6-1 and 6-1 to advance to the quarterfinals.

Today's matches will feature the continuation of singles play in both the Pac-10 and Invitational draws as well as the start of doubles play.

Husky coach Matt Anger had high expectations for his players going into this weekend's tournament coming off four consecutive wins in one of the toughest conferences in the nation for men's tennis.

"We're coming in playing our best tennis of the year," he said. "I hope we'll be playing even a little better in the coming weeks."

Reach reporter Risa Pavia at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.