Miller, Rubel advance to second round at Ojai

The Laguna Beach High boys’ tennis doubles tandem of senior Rex Miller and Mikey Rubel advanced to the second round at the prestigious 109th annual Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament over the weekend.

Miller and Rubel defeated Jordan Belk and Steven Chew of Venice, 6-1, 6-3, in the first round of CIF doubles. In the second round, they fell to eventual doubles finalists Walter Kehrer and Daniel McCall of Brentwood, 6-0, 6-0.

“[Kehrer and McCall] were just really solid players,” Laguna Beach Coach Aaron Talarico said.

Breakers sophomore Jake Michaels lost a tough first-round CIF singles match to Matthew Wagner of Harvard-Westlake, 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-4.

After Michaels took the first set in the tiebreaker, Talarico said there was a rain delay of about 45 minutes.

“The other guy came out on fire after that,” Talarico said.

In the third set, Michaels couldn’t hold serve at 4-5, despite a 40-love lead. But Talarico was proud of his player.

“That’s the highest level Jake’s played at this season,” he said. “It was fun to watch. We had a good time.”

“” Matt Szabo