Tennis Roundup

Grant Saacks of Pepperdine University and Pat Crow of Cal State Long Beach won their semifinal tennis matches Saturday to advance to the finals of the Rolex Southern California Regional Championships at UC Irvine.

Saacks and Crow will compete for the championship at 10 a.m. today. The UC Irvine’s doubles teams of Mark Kaplan--Richard Lubner and Trevor Kronemann--Shige Kanroji also advanced to today’s doubles semifinals.

Saacks advanced by defeating teammate David Wells-Roth 6-1, 6-2, in the semifinals and UC Irvine’s Mike Briggs, 6-4, 6-1, in the quarterfinals.

Crow defeated Fresno’s Marcos Garzo, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, in the semifinals. He posted a 5-7, 6-0, 7-5 quarterfinal victory over Arizona State’s Brian Gyetko.

Fourth-seeded Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland upset top-seeded Henri Leconte of France, 6-4, 7-5, in the $450,000 Benson and Hedges championships at Wembley, England.

Hlasek will meet fifth-seeded Jonas Svensson, who overcame No. 8-seeded John Fitzgerald of Australia in the other semifinal match, 7-5, 6-4, today.

“I feel really good and I am looking forward to the final with a lot of confidence,” Hlasek said. “I know I have never won a title, but I am feeling very confident now.”

Hlasek, who has never won a title in 5 years on the pro circuit, reached the fifth final of his career on his 24th birthday.

“He’s obviously very confident and at the moment he is playing top-10 tennis,” Leconte said.