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Tennis: Costa Mesa Pro Classic to hold singles, doubles championship Sunday

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Two promising young American tennis players will meet in the singles championship Sunday at the Costa Mesa Pro Classic, a $10,000 United States Tennis Assn. Pro Circuit event at Costa Mesa Tennis Center..

Dennis Novikov, 20, the 2012 USTA Boys’ 18 national champion in singles and doubles, and who played two years at UCLA before turning professional, faces Jarmere Jenkins, 23, who was the ITA National Player of the year while competing for the University of Virginia. The George native also won the NCAA doubles championship and reached the NCAA singles final in 2013.

In the doubles championship, UCLA teammates Mackenzie McDonald and Martin Redlicki will face Jeremy Hunter Nicholas, who played at San Diego State, and Junior Alexander Ore, a senior at Texas A&M. McDonald won the Costa Mesa Pro Classic’s doubles championship with Marcus Giron in September.

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Novikov and Jenkins have faced each other twice, each winning once. Their first meeting was in Jenkins’ second professional event, in June, 2013. They met in the finals, with Novikov pulling out a tough three-set victory.

On Saturday, the fifth-seeded Novikov drew eighth-seed Jeff Dadamo, a former Texas A&M player and Florida native. After dropping the first set, 3-6, Novikov used his ferocious serve to claim the next two sets.

“He’s a good, smart player and he played a solid game,” Novikov said of Dadamo. “I was lucky to break his serve a couple of times and pick up a couple of point. It was a hard match.”

Novikov has won three Pro Circuit events, including two this year in Canada and Mexico. He is currently ranked 452nd in the world.

Jenkins has also won three Pro Circuit events. Saturday, the second-seeded Jenkins, currently ranked 280th in the world, defeated third-seed Tennys Sandgren, of Florida.

It was another hard-fought match, as both players fired off volley after volley, usually behind the baseline. Jenkins dropped the first set 7-5, won the second 6-4 and then survived the tiebreaker in the third.

“I think it came down to the mental game,” Jenkins said. “We both grew up in the Southeast and have been playing each other since we were about 9. So we know each other’s game really well and there were no easy points out there. I give him a lot of credit because he’s coming back from an injury (Sandgren has hip surgery in March) and he gave me all I could handle. It really just came down a couple of crucial points in the tie-breaker.”

The winner of the singles championship, which will follow the doubles championship, which begins at 10 a.m., will earn $1,440 and, perhaps more important, accrue 17 points in their world ranking.

The Pro Circuit is the developmental arm of the USTA, fielding men’s and women’s tournament across the country. Players earn money and, just as important, world ranking points. The Costa Mesa Pro Classic is the second of three consecutive hard-court Pro Circuit events in Southern California.

— From staff reports

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