Greene and Sippola win doubles title at Fallbrook Open

The 44th annual Fallbrook Open tournament at the Fallbrook Tennis Club included Bonsall's Dale Greene and Fallbrook's Steve Sippola winning the Men's 4.0 Doubles championship.

Greene and Sippola faced the Fallbrook duo of Glenn Matayoshi and Dale Miller in the championship match. Greene and Sippola won the 6-3 first set. The second set was tied at six games apiece, triggering a tiebreaking game to seven points with a requirement to win by at least two points. Greene and Sippola won the tiebreaker 9-7.

"That was a good match," said tournament organizer Rex Neilson.

Greene and Sippola had defeated Jay Johnson of San Marcos and Thomas Pelletier of Valley Center in the semifinals. Johnson and Pelletier won a tiebreaker 7-4 after each tandem won six games in the first set, but Greene and Sippola came back with 6-1 and 6-3 victories to advance to the final. Matayoshi and Miller reached the final with a 6-3, 6-1 semifinal victory over Murrieta's Tom Johnson and Temecula's Mark Taylor.

The tournament June 2-3 and June 9-10 attracted 124 players.

"Each year it should get bigger and better," said Neilson, who purchased the Fallbrook Tennis Club in December. "We're trying to make it a major tournament, so we're increasing the prize money each year."

Neilson added that the Fallbrook Open dates would likely be altered so that the tournament does not conflict with the National Open Hard Court Championships in San Diego. This year the hardcourt nationals began May 28 and ended June 3.

Fallbrook's Robbie Dabbs reached the Men's Open Singles final of the Fallbrook Open before a 6-4, 6-2 victory by Yorba Linda netter Sean Robles gave Robles the division title. Kevin Cochrane of Fallbrook reached the Mens 65 Singles final but lost a pair of 6-0 sets to John Rhodes of Carlsbad. Cochrane and Chris Verhulst of Perris were in the Mens 3.5 Doubles championship match which was won in 6-1 and 6-4 sets by the San Marcos duo of Johnson and Mark Mallare.

Fallbrook resident Susan Lucy and her daughter, Fallbrook High School graduate and current Santa Barbara resident Hannah Lucy, advanced to the Women's 4.0 Doubles final but were unable to play that match due to a schedule conflict so Janet Pitcher of Murrieta and Natalie Stephens of Oceanside won that division.