Artem Sitak Wins Ojai Men’s Open

Written by: Staff on 29th April 2012

Artem Sitak Wins Ojai Men’s Open |

Artem Sitak arrived early Sunday morning for his men’s open match singles match on the final day of The Ojai and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Having played the entire tournament at the Ojai Valley Inn a mile from the main Libbey Park site, Sitak strolled through the main entrance of the park.

“When I walked in through the front of the park I was like ‘Wow’. It’s all pretty impressive,” said Sitak, who beat former USC star Peter Lucassen 6-2, 6-1, to win $5,000 and the Men’s Open title at the 112^th annual Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament on Sunday. “I called my coach and said this is really neat. There are so many people watching and the set-up is just great. I had no idea what it was going to be like.”

He added: “It’s really run like an ATP event. No wonder you have it for 112 years. I had heard about it for quite some time, but just had never had the chance to play it.”

The 26-year-old Russian-born New Zealand player wasn’t done there. Later in the day he won the doubles with Nima Roshan, 6-4, 6-4, over Joel Kielbowicz and Rylan Rizza.

Sitak said he will go back to New Zealand for a couple of weeks then head to Europe and play some Challenger events.

Sitak was a practice partner for Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in Miami in 2008 and has also hit on occasion with Pete Sampras in L.A. “Pete is such a great guy,” he said. “He’s such a funny guy. I really have enjoyed the times we’ve been able to hit together.”

10sBalls.com is proud to be an Ojai sponsor. Follow the site for all the updates and news and notes. You can follow The Ojai on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheOjaiTennisTournament and on Twitter @TheOjai.