Cal Battles Stanford In Big Slam

Lucas Magnaudet and the Bears have a 1-0 record against the Cardinal so far this season.

MTEN4/13/2023 6:57 PM | By: Cal Athletics

BERKELEY – The 29th-ranked California men’s tennis team heads to The Farm to battle No. 20 Stanford in the Big Slam on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. PDT. In the penultimate weekend of the regular season, the Golden Bears (11-7, 3-2 Pac-12) are tied with the Cardinal (12-7, 3-2) for third place in the Pac-12 Conference.
 
In the Bears’ first meeting with Stanford this season, Yuta Kikuchi defeated Arthur Fery, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, to clinch Cal’s 4-3 victory on Jan. 20 at the Hellman Tennis Complex. The Cal veteran also paired with Philip Hjorth to win 6-2 over Samir Banerjee and Aryan Chaudhary in doubles, with Siddhant Banthia and Carl Emil Overbeck later clinching the doubles point for the Bears with a 6-4 result over Stanford’s Fery and Neel Rajesh.
 
Click here for the Stanford live stream and live scores. Fans can also keep track of the Bears on Twitter @CalMensTennis.
 
Yuta Kikuchi Named Pac-12 Player Of The Week
Cal star Yuta Kikuchi was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week on Tuesday, after the graduate student led the then-No. 43 Bears to conference victories over No. 28 UCLA and No. 10 USC in the last regular-season home matches of his career.
 
This is the second Pac-12 Player of the Week accolade for Kikuchi, who first garnered the honor in the spring of 2022.
 
Against the Bruins on Friday, Kikuchi defeated Patrick Zahraj, 6-4, 6-2, at court-one singles to clinch Cal’s 4-0 win. Kikuchi also partnered with senior Philip Hjorth to clinch the doubles point with a 7-5 win over UCLA’s Jeffrey Fradkin and Aadarsh Tripathi on court three.
 
On Saturday, in possibly his last match as a collegian at the Hellman Tennis Complex, Kikuchi beat USC’s 35th-ranked Stefan Dostanic, 6-3, 6-1, for his fifth consecutive singles win. That win gave Cal a 1-1 tie with the Trojans and started a comeback that resulted in Cal’s 4-3 triumph.
 
Poll Position
Cal is ranked 29th in this week’s ITA team poll. Yuta Kikuchi (14-6) is ranked 29th in singles, while the duo of Ryder Jackson and Lucas Magnaudet (14-3) is ranked 61st in and the tandem of Kikuchi and Carl Emil Overbeck (4-0) is ranked 80th in doubles.
 
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Cal swept UCLA and…