Dent, Park Lose in First Round

Taylor Dent of Newport Beach and USC’s Andrew Park lost their first-round tennis matches Monday at the ATP Tour Challenger event at Nellie Gail Ranch in Laguna Hills.

Dinu Pescariu of Romania defeated Dent, 6-4, 7-6. Alex Clatrava of Spain defeated Park, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Fourth-seeded Fernando Meligeni of Brazil, the only seeded player in action Monday, beat Heman Gumy of Argentina, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.

Today’s singles matches begin at 10 a.m. Top-seeded Andrew Ilie of Australia plays former UCLA standout Eric Taino in the fourth match and second-seeded Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina plays Paul Goldstein, formerly of Stanford, in the third match.