Ethan Carroll Advances to Ojai Singles Championship for CMS Men's Tennis

OJAI, Calif. - Senior Ethan Carroll won his first four singles matches at the 120th annual Ojai Tennis Tournament, advancing to Sunday's finals against Mukund Madabhushi of Pomona-Pitzer.

Carroll moved on to the finals with a tough battle against Andre Mardirossian of UC Santa Cruz in the semis on Saturday afternoon. Carroll dropped the first set in a tiebreaker (8-6) after failing to convert an early servce break, and then a set point at 6-5 in the tie-break. Carrol responded with a 6-1 win in the second set, and then earned a 10-4 decision in the match tie-break to advance through to tomorrow's championship. 

Carroll moved easily through the opening rounds on Friday, defeating Michael Campbell of Pacific Lutheran 6-2, 6-1, and Spencer Cinco of Whittier 6-4, 6-1 to advance to the quarterfinals on Saturday. His 6-2, 6-1 win over second-seeded Caleb Wilkins of Chapman was his second of the year over the now No. 3 ranked player in the West Region. 

Madabhushi, who replaced teammate and top seed Hayden Snyder in the draw, advanced to the finals by knocking off Jack Katzman in the semis after Katzman won his first three matches, denying CMS the chance at an all-Stag championship match. Katzman opened on Friday with a 6-0, 6-0 win over Samuel Kwon of Pacific Lutheran, and then took a 6-3, 6-1 win over Joshua Nelson of Redlands. On Saturday, he took a 7-6, 6-0 win over Rishi Gundakaram of Caltech, winning the tiebreaker 7-4 before dominating the second set. However, he finally fell to Madabhushi, who was pushed to three sets in his quarterfinal match against Stefan Hester of Redlands, before advancing 10-7 in the third set. It was the second match between Madabhushi and Katzman in the last seven days, with Katzman defeating Madabhushi in last Saturday's dual match at the No. 4 singles position.

Carroll and Katzman also competed together in doubles, and advanced to the quarterfinals with an 8-5 win over Cal Lutheran, but then fell 8-5 to Southwestern. 

Carroll and Madabhushi will meet at 11 a.m. on Sunday for the Ojai Division III Singles Championship. Carroll will look to be the seventh straight CMS winner of Ojai D3 singles championship