Holt Upsets Fritz, Laurent Defeats Escobedo to Reach Semis of UTR's California Open Championships; Querrey vs Klahn in Second Semifinal

The inaugural California Open, a UTR sponsored tournament that has been going on since Saturday at the Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates in Southern California, is now entering its final stages, with Thursday's quarterfinals producing some surprising results.

The tournament, which allowed any player with a UTR ranking to make his way through qualifying to advance to round 1 of the main draw, which included former ATP pro Mardy Fish, current ATP pros Ernesto Escobedo, Dennis Novikov(UCLA), Gage Brymer(UCLA), Daniel Nguyen(USC), and current collegians Jacob Brumm(Cal), Brandon Holt(USC) and Thomas Laurent(Oregon). Awaiting the winners of those matches (Brymer, Novikov, Laurent and Holt) in the quarterfinals of the tournament, where higher UTR players are placed awaiting their opponents were ATP Top 100 pros Sam Querrey, Taylor Fritz, Bradley Klahn and Escobedo, who apparently got in as a lucky loser.  Steve Johnson and Tommy Haas were scheduled to compete in the tournament, but withdrew in the past few days.

Querrey defeated Brymer 6-3, 6-2, Klahn defeated Novikov 6-4, 6-2 and Laurent got his second win over Escobedo in two days, by a 6-0, 6-1 score. The biggest surprise was Holt's 6-4, 6-4 win over Fritz, who has a current ATP ranking of 49. Not only is Fritz's UTR nearly a full point higher than Holt's, the USC junior was playing in the USTA's Wild Card tournament final in Lake Nona on Tuesday before flying back home for his first round match Wednesday, then taking on Fritz today. Holt will face Laurent, whom he defeated in Pac-12 conference play back in March 6-1, 6-2, for a spot in the final, while Querrey and Klahn will meet in the other semifinal.

The matches are being streamed on Facebook, with Tracy Austin and Stephen Amritraj providing commentary. The first semifinal between Holt and Laurent is scheduled for 11 a.m. Pacific, followed by Klahn and Querrey.

For complete results, see the UTR event page.