LA JOLLA, Calif. - The UC San Diego men's tennis team lost its season opener Monday, 6-3, in a home match against the Concordia Eagles. Despite winning three of the top four singles contests, the Tritons failed to climb out of the 3-0 hole created by a CUI doubles sweep in the early going.

Junior Erik Elliott posted an impressive victory at the No. 1 singles position for UCSD, knocking off the Eagles' Augusto Elias by a score of 6-4, 6-1. Elias earned All-American honors in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) after compiling a 15-6 singles record in 2009.

"Erik doesn't have any experience up there at No. 1 so I'm certainly happy for his result out there today," Tritons' head coach Eric Steidlmayer said. "Anytime you get a win at No. 1 at this level, it's something to be proud of."

UCSD sophomore Jake Fellow and junior captain Vincent Nguyen also opened the 2010 season with singles wins. Fellow topped CUI junior Kareem Berdai, a San Diego native, 6-4, 6-1. Nguyen's victory over Bruno Santarelli came in comeback fashion, rallying back from a first-set loss of 6-1 to take the second set 7-6. With the team loss already decided, Nguyen and Santarelli played a 10-point tiebreaker. The pair continued to play close but Nguyen edged out Santarelli, 11-9.

Chapman Chan, Armaun Emami and Sam Ling fell in their singles matches at their corresponding No. 2, No. 5 and No. 6 positions. Starting off 0-3 in doubles came back to haunt the Tritons after Austin West/Emami, Fellow/Elliott and Ling/Naveen Dixit were topped 8-4, 8-5, 8-6 respectively.

The UCSD squad returns to action on the road when it faces another tough NAIA challenger, Azusa Pacific, at 1 p.m. Saturday.

"APU is even tougher than the Concordia team we saw today," Steidlmayer said. "We're going to have to play a lot better to stay close with them."

---