UCLA’s Matkowski Wins Men’s Pac-10 Semifinal

UCLA’s Marcin Matkowski and California’s Racquel Kops-Jones each had a helping hand while winning men’s and women’s Pacific 10 Conference doubles championships last season.

This year, they’ll go it alone and try to win singles titles in final matches of the Pac-10 Championships being played today in conjunction with the 103rd Ojai tournament at Libbey Park.

Matkowski defeated Cal senior John Paul Fruttero, 6-2, 6-4, in the semifinals Saturday. Matkowski is ranked No. 26 nationally by the Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. but was top-seeded over 12th-ranked and No. 2-seeded David Martin of Stanford because of a power rating based on a combination of rankings, season records and head-to-head results against Pac-10 opponents.

Matkowski, a junior from Poland, advances to face No. 18-ranked Washington sophomore Alex Vlaski at 11 a.m. Unseeded Vlaski, last year’s singles runner-up to UCLA’s Rodrigo Grilli, upset Martin, 6-2, 6-4, in the other semifinal match.

“I was pressuring his serves and I didn’t give him any free points,” Matkowski said.

“He’s really on top of his game,” Fruttero said of Matkowski, who won the conference doubles title last year with Jean-Julien Rojer.

Matkowski lost to Vlaski in last year’s semifinals, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, but beat him, 6-2, 6-2, in a regular-season match two weeks ago.

Kops-Jones, who teamed with Christina Fusano to win doubles last season, defeated Arizona’s Maja Mlakar, 6-0, 6-4, to reach the women’s singles final against Oregon’s Daria Panova at 9:30 a.m. She and Fusano also will be going for another doubles title, against Mlakar and Emilie Scribot.

USC’s Parker Collins and Daniel Langre will play in the men’s doubles final at 2 p.m. after beating Arizona State’s Olivier Charroin and Chris Stewart, 8-4. The Trojan duo will play Stanford’s James Pade and K.C. Corkery, who defeated Whi Kim and Paul Warkentin, 8-4.

In junior matches, top-seeded Fullerton Troy senior Jeffrey Das won six consecutive games to rally from a 5-3 first-set deficit and take a 2-0 second-set lead before winning the boys’ CIF interscholastic title with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Santa Ana Mater Dei junior Kaes Van’t Hof.

Irvine Woodbridge senior Elizabeth Exon came from behind to win her second consecutive girls’ 18-and-under division title, beating Dana Hills senior Kady Pooler, 5-7, 7-5, 6-3.

Pooler was up one set and 5-2, and had two match points before Exon, the girls’ Southern Section singles champion, began to wear down her error-prone junior-circuit doubles partner, who repeatedly dumped backhand volleys into the net.

Neither had played much since the high school season ended, and both said fatigue was a factor in the 2-hour 35-minute match.

Palisades sophomore Chris Ko won the boys’ 16-and-under title with a 6-3, 7-6 (1) victory over Pasadena Poly sophomore Alex Krueger-Wyman. Fullerton Troy freshman Cosmina Ciobanu routed Malibu sophomore Kelly Stewart, 6-0, 6-1.

Fourth-seeded Martina Nejedly of Palm Springs defeated top-seeded Amanda Fink, 6-1, 6-2, in the women’s Open singles division semifinals.

She will play No. 2-seeded two-time defending division champion Dina McBride of Woodland Hills, who will be going for her third title in a row today after advancing with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over third-seeded Amy Alcini of Malibu.