Cal's Lakat loses heartbreaker in National Indoors

Cal's Florian Lakat, serving in doubles in last
year's Tiburon Challenger, lost in the second
round of singles in the National Indoors on
Friday. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Cal's three remaining singles players lost to seeds on Friday in the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships.
   But Florian Lakat put up a tremendous fight on the men's side.
   Lakat, a senior from France, lost to fourth-seeded Nuno Borges of Mississippi State 6-7 (8), 7-6 (4), 6-4 in the second round at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.
   Borges, a sophomore from Portugal, then managed to beat Skander Mansouri of Wake Forest 7-5, 6-1 to reach the semifinals.
   In the second round of women's singles, top seed and defending champion Francesca Di Lorenzo of Ohio State beat Cal's Karla Popovic, a junior from Croatia, 6-0, 6-4.
   Also, fourth-seeded Hayley Carter of North Carolina dismissed Cal's Maegan Manasse, a senior from Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles area, 6-2, 6-2.
   Di Lorenzo and Carter, the runner-up to Danielle Collins of Virginia in the NCAA Championships in May in Tulsa, Okla., then advanced to the semis.
   Manasse, the 2014 runner-up to Julia Elbaba of Virginia in the National Indoors, has missed most of the fall season with a nagging elbow injury.
   Columbia's Richard Pham and Victor Pham, brothers from Saratoga in the San Francisco Bay Area, reached the men's doubles semifinals with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Morgan Mays and Simon Freund of UC Santa Barbara.
   Richard Pham, a senior, and Victor Pham, a sophomore, will face Valparaiso's Jeffrey Schorsch and Charlie Emhardt, who upset top-seeded Lakat and Filip Bergevi in the second round.