Three ARC tennis standouts advance to state tournament

Coach Bo Jabery-Madison and his ARC men's tennis squad are feeling confident heading in to the state championships this week at Newport Beach.

ARC was able to qualify one player for singles, Andy Riggs, and one duo for doubles, Riggs and Thomas Coibon. The pair opens the state championships with a match against the No. 7 seed for the North, and Riggs will later open with a match against the No. 6 seed from the South.

"Andy has the potential to make waves in the state tournament. He has always had the tools to work with, and now he's learning how to use them," said Jabery-Madison.

 He also spoke about his doubles team: "Coibon and Riggs play some of the most fundamentally sound doubles I have seen in the state this year. If we can neutralize other team's ' big weapons and get the points to neutral, I don't see more than a few teams that can beat us."

    Qualifying for state took place the previous weekend at the NorCal Regional Tournament in Santa Rosa, where three Beavers competed in singles, and three for doubles.

The three singles players that represented ARC were Thomas Coibon, who drew the No. 8 seed, Nader Zahedi, and Andy Riggs, who drew the No. 4 seed.

Coibon lost his opening match to John Karlman 7-5, 6-2 after a competitive first set that went to 5-all. Nader Zahedi won his first match against Artur Ivancenko from Foothill 6-4, 6-1 but lost  to Lu Tang, the No. 3 seed, 6-2, 6-0.

Zahedi fell one round short of qualifying for the state championship, but the same could not be said for the leader of the ARC men's tennis squad, Andy Riggs.

 Riggs beat the No. 11 Aziz Makhkamov from Sierra in the quarterfinals, 6-3, 6-1. In the semifinals, Riggs faced the No. 2 seed KC Ensley. Riggs took Ensley to three sets during a battle that lasted three hours, but he would eventually lose, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.

There was one highlight for ARC doubles amidst two of the pairs failing to qualify for the state tournament. The Coibon and Riggs duo was the No. 8 seed going in to the tournament, but never played like one. They played a familiar duo from Sierra, Dmitri Drozdov and Aziz Makhkamov.

Coibon and Riggs found themselves down a set to Drozdov and Makhkamov but rebounded to play outstanding second and third sets to win the match 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.