Giron Posts Career-Best Performance in San Diego

SAN DIEGO -- Former UCLA men's tennis standout Marcos Giron achieved a professional milestone last week, reaching the first ATP final of his career at the San Diego Open.

Action in the singles main draw ran from Sept. 19-25 at Barnes Tennis Center. Giron was ousted in the championship match by San Diego Brandon Nakashima, 6-4, 6-4, but not before the Bruin was able to knock off a pair of fellow seeded players in the preceding rounds.

Giron, who rose five spots in the latest ATP singles rankings to No. 53 with his performance, picked up a marquee win when he dealt top seed and 25th-ranked Dan Evans of the United Kingdom a 6-3, 7-5 loss in the semifinals. Giron also got the best of then-No. 83 and seventh-seeded James Duckworth by a 7-6(5), 6-3 margin in the quarterfinal round. A 6-4, 6-3 triumph over Tomas Martin Etchevarry of Argentina in the round of 16 got Giron's run started.

Giron's 2022 has seen the Thousand Oaks, Calif. native advance to the singles third round at the Italian Open as a lucky loser. He also picked up his second career singles win at Wimbledon.

The San Diego field also featured Giron's former UCLA teammate and fellow NCAA singles champion Mackenzie McDonald, who bested Henry Laaksonen of Switzerland in the opening round before bowing out against second-seeded and 46th-ranked Jenson Brooksby of the United States in a match that went the distance. Bruins Govind Nanda and Keegan Smith participated in qualifying. Nanda took down top-seeded Juan Pablo Ficovich of Argentina 6-3, 6-1.

In doubles play, the team of Giron and McDonald was eliminated by eventual finalists Jason Kubler and Luke Saville of Australia. The wild-card team of Smith and partner Sam Verbeek of the Netherlands dropped a third-set tiebreaker to the third-seeded combination of Nicholas Barrientos and Miguel Angel-Reyes-Varela.