Cal Faces Stanford In Pac-12 Quarterfinal

Derrick Chen and the Bears have split two matches with Stanford this season.

MTEN4/25/2023 11:32 PM | By: Cal Athletics

BERKELEY – The 29th-ranked California men’s tennis team faces a familiar foe on Thursday to start its Pac-12 Championship run, as the fifth-seeded Golden Bears meet fourth-seeded and 23rd-ranked Stanford in a quarterfinal at 9 a.m. PDT at Libbey Park in Ojai. The winner of the conference tournament earns the Pac-12’s automatic berth into the NCAA Championship.
 
Cal has an overall record of 12-9, while the Cardinal is 13-9. The rivals each had a 4-4 Pac-12 record during the regular season, with Stanford edging the Bears for the higher seed in the Pac-12 Championship due to its conference win over Cal.
 
This will be the third match between the two rivals this season, with Cal winning a nonconference clash on 4-3 on Jan. 20 in Berkeley and Stanford winning the conference contest, 4-3, on April 15 on The Farm. In the earlier match, Cal graduate student Yuta Kikuchi defeated Arthur Fery, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, to clinch the victory.
  
The live stream for the match will be available by clicking here. Live scores for the tournament will be available here. Saturday’s 3 p.m. final will air on the Pac-12 Networks. Fans can also keep track of the Bears on Twitter @CalMensTennis.
 
Poll Position
Along with the Bears’ No. 29 team ranking, Yuta Kikuchi (16-7) is ranked 28th in singles. The duo of Kikuchi and Carl Emil Overbeck (5-1) is ranked 63rd and the pair of Ryder Jackson and Lucas Magnaudet (14-4) is ranked 84th in doubles.
 
Kikuchi Named Pac-12 Player of the Week
Cal star Yuta Kikuchi was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week on April 11, after the Yahaba, Japan, native 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.
 
That marked 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 April 7, 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 April 8, in possibly his last match as…