The Cerritos College men's tennis team suffered a couple of losses on the second day of the CCCAA State Championships at Ojai. The Falcons still have a pair of singles players and one doubles team remaining and have all advanced to the quarterfinals, which start Saturday morning.

Singles - Freshmen Oleksandr Krasnov (School 106, Ukraine) and Nikita Katsnelson (Odessa Gymnasium No. 1, Ukraine) represent all of the remaining entires. Krasnov, a #3-seeded player, opened the day with a 6-3, 6-2 win over #12-seeded Euan Rajanthiran of Foothill College and followed that with a Round of 16 win over #7-seeded Kyle Rae of Fresno City College, 7-5, 6-1. He will now take on #5-seeded Simon Hedberg of Santa Barbara City College at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. Should he post a win, Krasnov will take on either #3-seeded Sean Alves of Folsom Lake College or #1-seeded Hironori Koyanagi of Ventura College. In the Southern California Team Playoffs, Krasnov led Koyanagi, 6-4, 6-5 in their only meeting.

As for the #7-seeded Katsnelson, his day started with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over unseeded Charlie Stephens if Imperial Valley College, which advanced him to the Round of 16 against Irvine Valley College's, Scott Paz. The #16-seeded Paz, upset #1-seeded Alax Meliuk, 6-4, 6-1 in his previus match. But Katsnelson was able to post a 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 win to advance to the quarterfinals, where he will face #10-seeded Javi Velasco of Irvine Valley College. A win in the semifinals will send Katsnelson to the semifinals against either Ron Kang of Mt. San Antonio or San Cohen of Irvine Valley. Katsnelson has faced Kang twice and lost in straight sets both times.

Three other Falcons started the day, but were defeated and eliminated. Freshman Agustin Lombardi (E.S.D.S., Argentina), seeded #11, opened the day with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Emerson Sekban of Santa Barbara City College, But in the Round of 16, Lombardi was beat by #2-seeded Cohen, 1-6, 0-6. Seeded #15, freshman Aleks Trifunovic (Katrinelunds Gymnasium, Sweden) absorbed an 0-6, 3-6 loss to Alves, while freshman James Zhang (Shenzhen Luohu Foreign Language School, China) saw his singles season come to an end when he was defeated by #6-seeded Kang, 5-7, 3-6.

Doubles - Krasnov and Katsnelson, who are seeded #2, posted a 6-4, 6-2 win in the Round of 32 over Michael Burr and Guenter Newman of Ventura College and ended their day with a 6-2, 6-3 victory against Braden Holt and Igor Pissarenko of Foothill College. They will face #13-seeded Taylor Bryant and Peter Trhac of Palomar College at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday.

The team's other doubles pair, #5-seeded Trifunovic and Zhang started off with a 6-0, 6-4 win against Rajanthiran and Jacob Strabo of Foothill College. However, their season came to an end with a hard-fought 0-6, 7-5, 9-11 loss against #2-seeded Cody Duong and Alex Meliuk of American River College.