ST. HELENA, Calif. – Three Golden Bears – including 2015 champion Billy Griffith – opened with singles wins at the Audi Napa Valley Tennis Classic on Friday at the Meadowood Napa Valley Resort.
 
The 49th-ranked Griffith, now a senior, topped Baylor's Sven Lah, 6-4, 6-2, in group 4. Fellow senior J.T. Nishimura, playing in group 2, edged Oklahoma's Jake Van Emburgh, 7-5, 7-5, and sophomore Bjorn Hoffmann defeated Andres Martin of the USTA High Performance Junior Team, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, in group 8. Cal freshman Jack Molloy, in group 3, fell to Oklahoma's Alexander Bakshi, 6-2, 6-4.
 
The winners of the eight singles groups will advance to the Solinco USTA Wild-Card Shootout on Sunday.
 
In doubles round-robin action on Friday, the 39th-ranked pair of Nishimura and Griffith beat Notre Dame's Matt Gamble and Alex Lebedev, 6-2. But Hoffmann and Molloy dropped both their matches, to USC's Jake DeVine and Mateusz Smolicki, 7-6(2), and to Notre Dame's Guillermo Cabrera and Tristan McCormick, 7-5.
 
Day two of the tournament begins with singles matches at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday.