Courtesy of Cracked Racquets.
This weekend in college tennis featured a few big-time non-conference matches coupled with conference play as well. Let’s recap some of the action!
Cal def. #21 Arizona 4-2
The Pac-12 started its conference play this weekend and the NorCal schools took it to Arizona and Arizona State.
The California Golden Bears started the weekend by upsetting the Arizona Wildcats on Friday night in Berkeley. The Bears won the doubles point clinched by Can Kaya and Paul Barretto on court 2.
Arizona’s Filip Malbasic then evened the match after dispatching Jacob Brumm on court 2. Barretto made it 2-1 Bears after defeating Igor Karpovets on court 3. Junior Bjorn Hoffman followed with a win on court 5 over Carlos Hassey to put Cal within 1 point.
Jack #CaptainClinch Molloy Stuck again last night!#GoBears pic.twitter.com/cmm8p1EXWi
— Cal Men’s Tennis (@CalMensTennis) March 9, 2019
Cal was up on the remaining courts and even had match points in the second sets of many matches, but Arizona forced third sets on courts 1 and 6 to keep the rally alive.
Jonas Ziverts made it 3-2 for the Cats by defeating a cramping Yuta Kikuchi 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 on court 1. Jack Molloy shut the door on the Cats, however, by defeating Alejandro Reguant on court 4 7-6, 7-6. Cal also went on to defeat Arizona State the following day 4-2.
#7 Stanford def. #21 Arizona 4-0
The Stanford Cardinal remained in top form this weekend and welcomed the Cats to the farm with a 4-0 defeat.
This was the Cardinal’s second 4-0 defeat of the weekend as they looked great against ASU the day before.
.@AxelGeller with the clincher.#GoStanford pic.twitter.com/N36plaG9v8
— Stanford Men’s Tennis (@StanfordTennis) March 10, 2019
Timothy Sah and Sameer Kumar clinched the doubles point for the Card after defeating Stewart Block and Jonas Maier 6-4 on court 3. Sangeet Sridhar slid into the lineup on court 6 and defeated Maier 6-3, 6-2 to make it 2-0 Card.
Fellow Freshman Alexandre Rotsaert followed suit by defeating Malbasic 6-4, 6-3 on court 2. Sophomore Axel Geller then clinched the match over Ziverts 7-5, 6-3 on court 1.
#25 Tennessee def. #24 LSU 4-3
Shifting over to the SEC, Tennessee earned a solid road win by defeating LSU 4-3.
Shane Monroe and Daniel Moreno clinched the doubles point for the Tigers on court 2 over Tennessee’s Martim Prata and Andrew Rogers 6-4 to put the home team out in front.
No. 25 Tennessee wins 4-3 on the road against No. 24 LSU, as senior #59 @TimoStodder gets the clinch with a 6-2 4-6 6-1 victory at the #1 singles spot against #112 Shane Monroe! #GoVols 🍊🍊 pic.twitter.com/Cpkq9M26nz
— Tennessee Tennis (@Vol_Tennis) March 8, 2019
Tennessee responded with a view quick victories to go up 2-1; Adam Walton defeated Rafael Wagner on court 2 and Luca Wiedenmann dispatched Nick Watson on court 6. Boris Kozlov then picked up a singles win for LSU by defeating Preston Touliatos on court 4.
The score then went from 2-2 to 3-3 as Scott Jones defeated LSU’s Malik Bhatnagar but LSU’s Joey Thomas beat Prata soon thereafter. With court 1 the only match left, Timo Stodder played an excellent third set to clinch the 4-3 win.
#28 Texas A&M def. #25 Tennessee 6-1
The Texas A&M Aggies stopped the Volunteers’ momentum on Saturday.
Juan Carlos Aguilar and Barnaby Smith clinched a very close doubles point 7-5 over Touliatos and Stodder on court 1. Smith then defeated Touliatos again on court 1 to put A&M up 2-0. However, Stodder got the best of Aguilar in singles on court 1 and defeated him 7-6, 6-3.
Alex clinches the match with a 7-5, 7-6(1) win on court 6!#GigEm pic.twitter.com/TAp4RA4JWn
— Texas A&M Men’s Tennis (@AggieMTEN) March 9, 2019
The rest of the day was all Aggies and Hady Habib (120th ranked) upended Adam Walton (93rd ranked) 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 on court 2. Freshman Alex Vedri then clinched the match over Pat Harper 7-5, 7-6(1).
The remaining matches were played out with Valentin Vacherot downing Scott Jones 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 on court 3 and Noah Schachter downing Widenmann 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 on court 5.
#9 Florida def. #10 Mississippi State 5-2
The Florida Gators made a statement on Sunday by defeating Mississippi State 5-2.
The Bulldogs got off to a quick start by winning yet another doubles point. This time, Niclas Braun and Gio Oradini (3rd ranked) defeated Alfredo Perez and Johannes Ingildsen on court 2 to clinch.
HUGE #GATORSWIN in the SEC Top-🔟 battle!!!😤😤#GatorWayBestWay 🐊🎾 pic.twitter.com/UQZHI6rD3p
— Gators Men’s Tennis (@GatorsMTN) March 10, 2019
Freshman Lukas Greif quickly made it 1-1 after dispatcher Trevor Foshey 6-0, 6-3 on court 5. Fellow freshman Sam Riffice posted an identical score on court 3 over Strahinja Rakic to make it 2-1.
Andy Andrade (54th ranked) then topped Oradini in a ranked battle on court 2 7-5, 6-4. Ingildsen then got the best of Braun on the singles court and defeated him 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 on court 4.
The remaining matches were played out and Nuno Borges (3rd ranked) picked up a solid win over UF’s Oliver Crawford (24th ranked) 6-4, 7-6(1) and Duarte Vale earned another win for the Gators over Florian Broska 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 on court 6.
#44 Kentucky def. #17 Alabama 5-2
The Kentucky Wildcats picked up a great opening SEC win over Alabama 5-2.
Kevin Huempfer and Fabian Penzkofer secured a 1-0 lead after clinching the doubles point on court 3 over Thibault Cancel and Riccardo Roberto 6-3.
A fun night at Boone Tennis Center ended with the Wildcats defeating the No. 17 Crimson Tide 5-2#UKRising pic.twitter.com/BJfmIf63JT
— Kentucky Men’s Tennis (@UKMensTennis) March 9, 2019
The Wildcats then quickly got the match to 4-0 with Cesar Bourgois defeating Cancel 7-5, 6-2 on court 4, Ryo Matsumara (44th ranked) upsetting Mazen Osama (36th ranked) 6-4, 6-2 on court 1, and Enzo Wallart downing Edson Ortiz 6-2, 6-4 on court 2. Kento Yamada then made it 5-0 with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 defeat of Patrick Kaukovalta on court 3.
The Tide then picked up two wins from Zhe Zhou 7-5, 6-7, 10-8 over Huempfer and Jeremy Gschwendtner 7-6, 7-5 over Parth Aggarwal on court 6.
Duke def. #23 Pennsylvania 6-1
The Duke Blue Devils earned a solid 6-1 win over visiting Penn on Friday. It was quite a disastrous week for Penn as they were defeated by unranked Charlotte earlier in the week.
The Blue Devils won a routine doubles point clinched by Nick Stachowiak and Jason Lapidus 6-2 on court 1 over Edoardo Graziani and Dmitry Shatalin.
Match clinched! Mateas takes court two 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 to give the Blue Devils a 4-0 lead
🔵😈 4, No. 23 Penn 🔵🔴 0 pic.twitter.com/VZzxko57S9
— Duke Men’s Tennis (@DukeMTEN) March 8, 2019
Duke then played some big ball on the bottom courts as Robert Levine dispatched Jason Hildenbrandt 6-0, 6-1 on 5 and Vincent Lin defeated Maxwell Cancilla 6-3, 6-2 on 6. Catalin Mateas then clinched the match 7-6, 6-3 on court 2 over Kevin Zhu.
Stachowiak made it 5-0 after defeating Grazini again but this time by a score of 6-0, 7-6. Sean Sculley added another victory for the Blue Devils over Noah Makarome 7-5, 6-2 on court 3, Shatlian got the only point of the day for the Quakers by downing Spencer Furman (114th ranked) 6-3, 4-6, 10-6.
That wraps it up for this week. To read more updates from Cracked Racquets, head over to www.crackedracquets.com.
