Gold Rush record first victory against top-10 opponent
March 4, 2011

Results:  Men    Women

     COSTA MESA, Calif. — The Xavier University of Louisiana men's tennis team defeated Vanguard 6-3 Friday for its first-ever victory against an NAIA top-10 opponent.
     The Gold Rush (8-2) are ranked 14th, and Vanguard (2-5) is seventh.
     Xavier's women, ranked 22nd, lost 9-0 to fourth-ranked Vanguard.
     Zach Taylor, Hassan Abbas and Sean Richardson won in singles and doubles for the Gold Rush. Taylor defeated Lucas Pereira 6-2, 7-5 at No. 1 singles to clinch the dual.
     "It's been a long road to get to this point where we feel like we belong among the nation's best," eighth-year XU Coach Alan Green said. "We always felt it but never proved it until today."
     Abbas defeated Robin Wagner 7-6 (7-1), 6-1 at No. 2 singles, and Richardson beat Sandro Bucher 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 at No. 5. Amir Rahbar got the other Gold Rush singles victory when he beat Radek Rosiak 6-1, 6-1.
     Taylor and Abbas defeated Pereira and Wagner 8-4 at No. 1 doubles, and Richardson and Steffen Giles-Osborn gave the Rush a 2-1 lead heading into singles when they defeated Bucher and Nils Iwdal 9-7.
     "This was a good win for us," Green said, "but we still have more work to do."
     The XU men, winner of eight of their last nine duals, will get another shot at a top-10 team when they conclude their trip against No. 8 Westmont at 2 p.m. PST Monday.
     The Gold Nuggets, in their only dual of this trip, had just four available players. XU's DeLoach sisters played the most competitive matches. Nicole DeLoach lost 6-2, 6-3 to Anna Valingsten at No. 3 singles, and Melissa lost 7-5, 6-2 to Ekaterina Gabashvili at No. 4.
     Vanguard's women are 4-2, and Xavier is 2-6.