By Jacob Norling
February 21, 2026
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) Westmont Men's Tennis (4-2) came away with its first win of the season against a PacWest competitor on Saturday in Santa Barbara, where the Warriors out-lasted the Menlo Oaks (2-2) 4-3. After a dominant showing in doubles, the Warriors earned three more wins in singles to fend off the Oaks for the victory.
 
In doubles, it was Driss Sedrati and JD Drake at line one (6-4), and Arjun Sivakumar and Jon Ball at line three (6-2) that earned Westmont the day's first point. In singles, Westmont saw the dominant play of Driss Sedrati, who won his match in straight sets 6-2, 6-2. Also picking up a win was Rafael Matias at line two, where the Warrior won 6-2, 6-4.
 
While there were still a couple matches to be decided, Antoine De Cooman made the remainder of the results a moot point, after clinching the match for the Warriors with a 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 win in three sets.
 
"This was our win against Menlo since they've established their team," said Westmont head coach Chris Elwood. "This was beautiful. Given last year's results, where we barely lost to them twice, it was really great to be on the front end of this one 4-3.
 
"Most importantly, we were in every single match. We clinched the match with Antoine's comeback in the third set. He was down a break, 4-3, and came all the way back to clinch it 7-5. We still had two matches on at that point, where Sid lost a close three-setter, as did Zach Steinberg. But again, we were in every match."
 
Reflecting back on doubles, Elwood said, "Doubles set the tone for the match. We were ahead in all of them before clinching at line and line three. There was great energy from the guys, and it was a bit of a different lineup with the addition of Jon Ball who played with Arjun. That pairing worked really well today.
 
"Then in singles, we had a quick win at line three, where Driss Sedrati played outstanding tennis. After that, Rafael Matias was up a set and was up 5-4 serving when he fell down hard with a bad cramp. We didn't know if he was going to be able to continue, even being ahead in the set. Somehow, with mental tenacity, Rafa found a way to win on a deuce point to get us our third point.
 
"At that point, it came down to Antoine clinching, but what I loved was how we had our teeth in every match. I'm really proud of the team. They really responded today to a lot of adversity, and it was great to see us take out the number-six team in conference right now. Give these guys all the credit today for putting their hearts, bodies, and minds into competing at the highest level today."
 
Westmont returns to action on Wednesday in Orange County, where they will take on Chapman at 4:00 p.m.