Biasella’s Aces Aren’t Enough

USC’s Adriano Biasella had most of the aces, but Stanford’s Sam Warburg still emerged with the winning hand in Sunday’s Pacific 10 Conference men’s tennis championship.

Warburg was out-aced, 11-4, but never lost a game on his serve in a 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory at the Ojai Valley tennis tournament in Libbey Park.

“I served well today,” said Warburg, a junior who had not advanced past the first day of the tournament in his previous two tries. “That was real important for me.”

Warburg effectively pushed Biasella off the court using a spinning serve that caught the edge of the service box. He stuck to his game plan of getting to the net and taking away Biasella’s trademark cross-court backhand.

Each player held serve in a tight first set. The only difference was Warburg’s 2-1 edge in service breaks in the tiebreaker.

Biasella lost one game off his serve. That was the only window Warburg needed, as he ended it with a serve that Biasella returned into the net.

Warburg pumped his fists and fell to the ground, showing exhaustion from the 90-degree heat.

His victory gives Cardinal Coach Dick Gould a singles champion in his final year at Ojai. Gould is retiring.

It also is Warburg’s second victory over Biasella in nine days.

“Nothing can take away from the fact that I’m the Pac-10 champion,” Warburg said.

In the women’s finals, baseline blunders defined most of the early games. But once California’s Raquel Kops-Jones straightened out her ground strokes and found the touch on her volleys, the Pac-10 title was hers for the taking.

Kops-Jones was too powerful and too versatile for Stanford’s Alice Barnes in the second set of a 6-3, 6-4 victory that gave the Cal senior her first individual title at Ojai.

She said her baseline play sparked the victory.

“It allowed me to be more relaxed at the net,” Kops-Jones said.

Barnes and partner Erin Burdette defeated Kops-Jones and Jieun Jacobs, 8-6, in the Pac-10 women’s doubles finals. The win helped Stanford win the Ojai team title for the ninth time in 11 years.

UCLA’s Philipp Gruendler and Luben Pampoulov defeated Stanford’s K.C. Corkery and James Pade, 8-3, in the men’s doubles, propelling UCLA to a men’s team title.

In the men’s open division, second-seeded Michael Joyce, a former ATP player, continued his career dominance over top-seeded Travis Rettenmaier, 6-2, 6-3.