It was a great Easter weekend of Pac-12 men’s tennis with several close dramatic matches and important results for NCAA tournament positioning. By the end of the weekend there would be three teams very pleased with their performance, two with a neutral performance and four teams who had negative weekends.
Best Weekends
UCLA: The Bruins had one of the most impressive weekends in the entire country. It began on Friday when UCLA matched up with #3 Stanford in a highly anticipated rematch from early February when Stanford pulled out a tight 4-3 match. The Bruins had two things going for them heading into the match; this time around the match was at home for UCLA and also Stanford had not played a truly competitive dual match in three weeks. UCLA came out strong, taking the doubles point in relatively quick fashion. They continued the doubles momentum into singles by winning 5 of the 6 1st sets. The Bruins would not relinquish the momentum at any point as Evan Zhu, Keegan Smith and Maxime Cressey all finished off their opponents in straight sets to stop the match with a 4-0 UCLA victory. This performance showed that UCLA is not at all ready to cede the Pac 12 to Stanford this season and that they are certainly on the national shortlist for national title contenders heading into April and May.
UCLA followed up their impressive win over Stanford with a dominant 4-0 win over Cal on Saturday where the Bruins won courts 1-3 all in straight sets.
Utah: Salt lake City was the place to be this weekend for dramatic college tennis. The #39 Utah Utes went into the weekend needing to win defend home court and win two critical matches vs the Arizona schools to keep their NCAA tournament hopes on the right track. The drama began on Friday vs the Arizona Wildcats. While the doubles point went to Utah easily, singles would not be nearly as straightforward. The Utes won the 1st set on all 6 courts, seemingly setting up a routine win. But the Wildcats fought back in impressive fashion and forced a 3rd set in 5 of the 6 singles matches. Arizona completed their rally on courts 1,4 and 5 to knot the match at 3-3 after Utah took wins at 2 and 6. The hero of the day would emerge on court 3 in the form of Utah Senior from Amsterdam Egbert Weverink as he defeated Filip Malbasic 6-4 5-7 7-6 ending in a dramatic 3rd set tiebreak. After the match Utah Head Coach Roeland Brateanu said “UA fought very hard and it was a close match that had everything in it. We are lucky to come up with this victory, thanks to Egbert.”
The drama for Utah was just beginning for Utah as another hard fought battle awaited them on Saturday vs #34 Arizona State. Of the two matches for the Utes over the weekend this one was the more important one in terms of getting a ranking boosting win. The Sun Devils took the doubles point in a tiebreak on court 3 to put the Utes behind the 8-ball in their upset attempt. Dan Little at court 1 and David Micevski on court 2 both put together impressive singles performances to get wins over top 40 ranked ITA players for Arizona State as Little took down Michael Geerts 7-5 7-5 and Micevski beat Benjamin Hannestad 7-5 6-3. Randy Cory got a straight set win on court 5 for Utah while Arizona State collected wins on courts 3 and 6. The key court in this match was court 4 where Santiago Sierra of Utah rallied from a set down, winning the 2nd set in a critical tiebreak vs Andrea Bolla to clinch the victory for Utah over Arizona State.
Utah has now won four straight 4-3 matches and these two close Pac 12 wins will raise their ranking from the bubble at #39 to a more solidly in the NCAA tournament ranking position.
Oregon: The 3rd Pac 12 school who had a positive weekend was Oregon. They only played one match, against Pac 12 travel partner Washington in Seattle in a match that both teams needed to win desperately. Oregon won the critical doubles point to give them the 1-0 edge heading into singles. Washington appeared to be on the way to victory in singles after winning 4 of the 6 first sets but Oregon had a response ready. The key to Oregon’s eventual 4-3 victory were the rallies and 2nd set tiebreak wins on courts 4 and 6, one from a senior and one from a freshman. Senior Cormac Clissold rallied to beat Amit Batta 4-6 7-6(5) 6-1, while saving a match point in the process in the 2nd set. After the Senior won his match the match would be clinched at court 6 by Riki Oshima. The Duck Freshman from Toyama, Japan defeated Alexis Alvarez 4-6 7-6(4) 6-4 to clinch the critical away win for the Ducks. Oregon Head Coach Nils Schyllander reflected on the two clinching players ” It was really rewarding to see Senior Cormac, who has battled for us for years, come back and save match point. And on the other hand to see a Freshman, in front of a big crowd and win it in the 3rd set. The team showed unbelievable grit today.” This win was an important step toward the NCAA tournament for Oregon.
Neutral Weekends
Stanford: Stanford’s strong season suffered it’s first real damper result of the year so far with a comprehensive 4-0 loss to UCLA on Friday. It wasn’t so much the loss at UCLA that was the damper but the fashion in which they were beaten. The Cardinal did however rebound on Saturday with a good 4-2 win at Southern Cal. After dropping the doubles point, Stanford came back with wins on courts 1-4 to make sure that the losing slide lasted only one match.
Southern Cal: The Trojans had a 1-1 weekend that included a 4-2 victory over Cal and a 4-2 loss to Stanford. They had an opportunity to catch Stanford when they were down and get a big win over the Cardinal at home in LA, but they were unable to take advantage. A victory would have pushed them toward the top 10, but at least they avoided what would have been a poor loss to Cal.
Negative Weekends
Cal: After two big wins over Baylor and Arizona State at Indian Wells, the Cal bears were looking to grab a big exclamation point victory this weekend over either UCLA and USC. They were unable to do so however as they were beaten soundly by UCLA and fell to Southern Cal in a decently close match. It was always going to be a tough weekend to get a win for the Bears so while they did go 0-2, it will not be too damaging overall.
Arizona: The Wildcats missed a chance for a big away win at Utah by failing to close out the Utes. Arizona has shown signs of improvement and have been more competitive this year than in recent years but they must start putting matches like the one on Friday into the win column rather than the tight loss category.
Arizona State: The Sun Devils suffered a fairly damaging loss to Utah on Saturday. They will now slide down the rankings a bit and get closer to that questionable NCAA bubble zone of the rankings. ASU certainly has a lot of talent but so far this season they are 2-3 in 4-3 matches with the wins being over teams ranked below them. They must find a way to get a 4-3 win over a higher ranked team to rise in the rankings again.
Washington: As important as the win was for Oregon, the loss was equally as damaging for Washington. On their home courts, in a winning position on multiple courts, the Huskies still found a way to lose the match to a team very close to them in the rankings. Washington really needed this victory and will now need need something really special to get into the NCAA tournament.
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