OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : Bleszynski Advances to Mixed Doubles Final

Mark Loughrin did his best to laugh it off, which was his most graceful option.

During a two-game stretch in an Olympic Festival mixed doubles tennis semifinal, almost every ball he hit went askew.

No problem. Loughrin could afford a few errant shots. He has Ania Bleszynski for a partner.

Almost every time Loughrin was handcuffed by one of Brian Patterson’s serves, Bleszynski answered the next offering with a strong return.

“I kept telling her, ‘You’re keeping me in there,’ ” Loughrin said. “She carried us for a while.”

Bleszynski, from Thousand Oaks, and Loughrin, from Greendale, Wis., advanced to Wednesday’s gold medal match by defeating Patterson and partner Kristen Sanderson, 6-2, 6-4, Monday at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center.

The victory kept alive Bleszynski’s hopes for earning medals in all three tennis events, although she suffered her first defeat of the competition in women’s doubles earlier in the day.

Mary Carlisle White, from Spartanburg, S. C., and partner Laura Berendt of Tampa, Fla., upset Bleszynski and Jennifer Heiser of Stockton, 7-5, 7-6 (6-4), in a semifinal.

Any loss by Bleszynski is considered an upset. Event organizers seeded the Stanford-bound 17-year-old first in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

She has almost lived up to the billing. Bleszynski is 2-0 in singles, 3-0 in mixed doubles and 1-1 in women’s doubles. Bleszynski and Heiser will play Christine Sim of Shawnee Mission, Kan., and Tara Snyder of Wichita, Kan., today for the bronze medal in doubles at 1 p.m., shortly after Bleszynski finishes her semifinal match in singles.

After a similarly fast start last year, Bleszynski tired in the final two days and took home two bronze medals.

She does not anticipate faltering this time, even though the weather--temperatures in the 90s and humidity to match--is similar to what she experienced last year in San Antonio.

“I’m more prepared and I know what to expect,” she said. “I know to go to bed earlier and I know to drink more and rest more.

“I’m not tired at all yet. I’m enjoying myself.”

In other tennis action, Elliott Weiss of Dallas and Jakub Pietrowski of Huntington Beach defeated David Sutton of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Philip Tseng, 6-2, 6-2, in a men’s doubles semifinal. Tseng is a Harvard-Westlake High graduate.

Earlier in the day, Tseng was eliminated from singles action, losing to Brandon Kramer of Reno, 7-5, 6-2.

In swimming, Nicole Beck of Ventura led the West 4-x-100-meter medley relay team to a wire-to-wire win in four minutes, 20.99 seconds. Beck got the West off quickly, swimming a 1:05.94 split on the first leg, the backstroke.

In the equestrian team dressage final, Heather Bender-Atwell of Burbank and Dennis Callin of Westlake Village formed half of the gold medal-winning West team. Bender-Atwell, riding Mikhail, and Callin, riding Excel, helped the West score 3,778 points to edge the East team.