Cal Hosts BITB Qualifier To Open Season

Lucas Magnaudet and the Bears start the new season with the Battle in the Bay Qualifier in Berkeley.

MTEN9/15/2022 12:38 PM | By: Cal Athletics

BERKELEY – The California men’s tennis team starts the 2022-23 season on Friday, when the Golden Bears host the Battle in the Bay Qualifier at the Hellman Tennis Complex. The tournament ends Sunday. Thirty players – from Cal, UC Davis, UNLV, Saint Mary’s, San Diego State, San Francisco, UC Santa Cruz and Stanford – seek to advance in singles and doubles from the qualifier to the Battle in the Bay tournament that will run from Sept. 23-25 at the California Tennis Club in San Francisco.
 
Two singles players and one doubles pair will qualify for the Battle in the Bay.
 
Match play will begin at 8 a.m. on Friday, 9 a.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. on Sunday. Admission is free. Fans can also follow the action via the Hellman live stream by clicking here and can follow match updates on Twitter at @CalMensTennis.
 
Here is the field for the qualifier; the draws will come out later Thursday:
 
Cal
Alex Chang
Derrick Chen
John Kim
Lucas Magnaudet
Mikey Wright
 
UC Davis
Andrei Volgin
 
UNLV
Maxim Verboven
Dusan Rsovac
Milos Dabic
Jackson Atherton
Anton Ornberg
Aaron Bailey 
 
Saint Mary’s
James Watt
Thibaud Maxant
Sumir Srivastava
Jakob Ortiveros
 
San Diego State
Johannes Seeman
Bora Sengul
Chikaya Sato
Eugenio Gonzalez
 
San Francisco
Luka Kalenic
Mortiz Hoffmann
Nikola Kuraica
Johan Garpered
 
UC Santa Cruz
Andre Mardirossian
Andrew Tjoa
Sam Hall
Ryan Lam
 
Stanford
Neel Rajesh
Issac Gorelik
 
Poll Position
Cal boasts a pair of ITA preseason rankings, with Yuta Kikuchi at No. 62 in singles and the pair of sophomore Carl Emil Overbeck and newcomer Siddhant Banthia – a graduate transfer from Wake Forest – ranked No. 30 in doubles.
 
Scouting the Bears

• Yuta Kikuchi and Philip Hjorth return for their fifth seasons
• Kikuchi, who ended the 2021-22 season with a No. 98 singles ranking, posted a singles record of 20-16 last season
• Hjorth was 20-14 in singles last year
• At 24-11, Carl Emil Overbeck led the Bears in singles wins last season
• The pair of Kikuchi and Overbeck had a season-ending doubles ranking of 36 last year, while Kikuchi and Hjorth finished at No. 85
• Cal features three new Bears in