(4) Cal
Cal Poly Men's Tennis Splits at ITA Kick-Off Weekend
1/28/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
BERKELEY – The Cal Poly men's tennis team split at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in Berkeley, Calif., as it picked up an impressive 4-3 win over Pepperdine on Saturday but fell to No. 4 Cal on Friday.
The Mustangs started their weekend off against Cal on Friday where they lost 4-0.
The No.2 doubles tandem of Cal's Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat beat No. 21 Ben Donovan and Corey Pang 6-2 on court one, while Bjorn Hoffman and J.T. Nishimura defeated Karl Enander Antoine Noel 7-5 on court three, giving Cal the doubles point.
No. 53 Garrett Auproux and Tim Tan were tied 6-6 with No. 45 Andre Goransson and Billy Griffith until their match was abandoned.
Auproux was defeated by No. 69 Bergevi on court three 6-2, 6-2, while No. 45 Donovan was beat by No. 12 Lakat on court one 6-1, 6-4.
With a 3-0 lead, No. 82 Hoffman beat Antoine Noel on court five 7-6(3), 6-4, clinching the match for Cal.
The Mustangs turned the momentum around on day two, as they came back to beat and beat Pepperdine, a historically good team that has been dominating the West Coast in tennis.
With a recent national championship and 43 conference titles, Pepperdine just couldn't keep up with Cal Poly.
"Today's match was everything that college tennis is about," said head coach Nick Carless. "It was a great team win for us, using the doubles point momentum at the start of singles play. At one point, we were up 3-0 but the match seemed to be slipping away from us."
Auproux and Tan went up against Gabriel Sidney and Gui Hadlich in doubles play but fell 6-1 on court two. Donovan and Pang took on Jack Van Slyke and Stefan Menichella on court one, coming out with a 6-2 win, needing court three to clinch the doubles point.
Karl Enander and Noel clinched the doubles point for the Mustangs after beating Pedro Iamachkine and Dane Esses 7-5.
Up 1-0, the Mustangs went into singles play where Josh Ortlip put the second point on the board after beating Lautaro Pane 6-0, 6-1 on court four.
Pang beat Stefan Menichella 6-1, 6-3 on court two, giving the Mustangs a 3-0 advantage.
Donovan was beat by Gui Hadlich on court one 6-4, 6-4, while Auproux put up a fight against Iamachkine on court three but fell 6-3, 5-7, 6-3, making the score 3-2.
Noel pushed Van Slyke to three sets on court five, but lost 6-4, 2-6, 6-0, tying the score up 3-3.
Axel Damiens took on Esses on court six, pushing him to a three set tie-breaker and came out with the win, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(5). Damiens clinched the match for the Mustangs, advancing them to 2-1 on the season.
"Hats off to Pepperdine for how they play and compete," said Carless. "The match on court six really only came down to a few points in the breaker with Axel playing some smart aggressive tennis at 5/5 and 6/5 to get it done."
"I'm happy for the seniors and happy for the program."
The Mustangs will be back on the road to take on Oregon on Feb. 4.
