RCC's Almeida and Real Advance to 3C2A State Quarterfinals

Riverside City College battled in the first two days of the 3C2A State Championship and saw one doubles team advance to the quarterfinals.

In doubles action, Matias Almeida and Emilio Real swept their opening doubles match and followed with a victory over Fresno City College to advance to the round of 16. The pair then picked up a two-set win (6-4, 6-4) over ARC's Spencer Hill and Arjun Sivakumar to advance to the quarterfinals. The pair face Glendale College's Lance Morgan and Adam Ridaoui on Saturday at 3:30 p.m., hoping to advance to Sunday's semifinals and eventual championship match.

Michael Chang and Lance Lao grabbed back-to-back two-set victories to advance to the round of 16 but came up just short of advancing to the quarterfinals.

Austin Harvill and Raphael Delente advanced to the round of 16 after defeating pairs from Santa Barbara City College and Foothill College. Ventura College's Julian Tellez and Rafael Matias cut their run short in the round of 16, however.

After a first-round bye in singles action, Chang swept Porterville University's Alberto Contreras (6-0, 6-0) to advance to the round of 32, where he batted to a 2-1 victory (6-7, 6-3, 6-0) over Chabot College's Elijah Cho. He came up short in the round of 16, falling in two sets (6-4, 6-2) to Irvine Valley College's Nick Grove.

Real also advanced to the round of 16 after defeating Ethan Auger 2-0 (6-0, 6-1) and American River College's Tarang Sharma 2-1 (7-6, 6-7, 6-0). He took on Arav Waghray in the round of 16, but fell in three sets (6-2, 4-6, 6-4).

Almeida won his first match 2-0 (6-1, 6-1), but fell in the next round 2-0 (6-0, 6-1), while Delente dropped a three-set battle (2-6, 6-4, 6-3) in the round of 32.