Freshman advances to main draw of tournament

LOS -- Freshman Patrick Kawka jumped through the qualifying rounds to join teammate Evan Urbina in the Round of 32 at the Southern California Intercollegiate Championships Wednesday.

The BYU men’s tennis athletes will be the only two Cougars representing their team in the singles main draw Thursday.

Kawka first defeated Concordia’s Ryan McNamara 6-3, 6-3 and then went on to defeat Alex Moreno of Pepperdine 6-2, 1-6, 10-5. Kawka will play No. 2 seed Daniel Kosakowski of UCLA in the first round of the main draw.

Freshman Tyler Loong of Orem, Utah, fell to opponent Evan Jurgensen of UCSB 6-1, 6-3 in Round 1 of qualifying. Roman Warias dropped a match to Steven Henderson of UC Irvine in the second qualifying round (6-1, 6-3) after beating UCSD’s Sam Ling 7-6, 6-0 in the first round.

No. 5 seeded Evan Urbina automatically advanced past the qualifying rounds and will make his first tournament appearance in Thursday’s match against Clarke Spinosa of San Diego.

Doubles action starts Thursday with qualifying rounds, in which Loong and Warias will face Jan Guler and McNamara of Concordia.

Kawka and Urbina skipped the qualifying rounds. Their Friday opponents will be determined after Thursday’s play.

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