Zach Franzen
Cal’s Ryder Jackson won in doubles and singles against Columbia.
BERKELEY – The 27th-ranked California men’s tennis team took a 2-0 lead over No. 11 Columbia before falling 4-2 to the Lions on Monday at the Hellman Tennis Complex.
Cal – which is now 4-1 at home – has a record of 7-3 after the nonconference contest. The Lions – who snapped the Golden Bears’ five-match winning streak – improved to 9-1.
The Bears continued their doubles dominance this season when they captured the doubles point against the Lions. The Cal pair of Siddhant Banthia and Carl Emil Overbeck opened with a 6-4 win over Max Westphal and Michael Zheng on court one. The Bears’ 54th-ranked Ryder Jackson and Lucas Magnaudet clinched the point with a 6-4 triumph over Nicolas Kotzen and Theo Winegar on court two.
The Bears have won seven out of eight doubles points this season. Two of their matches – a 5-1 win over San Francisco in Berkeley and a 6-0 rout of UC Davis in Davis, both on Feb. 25 – did not include doubles play.
Cal had a good start to singles against Columbia, winning five of six first sets. On court two, Jackson, ranked 94th, gave the Bears a 2-0 lead when he beat Alex Kotzen, 6-4, 6-0.
“That’s how you close out a match,” said Kris Kwinta, Cal’s Peter Wright Director of Men’s Tennis. “You win the first set and don’t give him any hope in the second. You just finish the job. He did it perfectly today. It was cool to see him play well.”
But Columbia reeled off four straight wins, with Nicolas Kotzen’s 1-6, 7-6(3), 6-3 result over Magnaudet on court six clinching the Lions’ 4-2 victory. A possible Cal win on court three – on which Derrick Chen led Columbia’s 59th-ranked Roko Horvat 6-1, 3-6, 5-4 – could have made the final score 4-3, but that court was abandoned when the Lions clinched.
“We won doubles and five first sets,” Kwinta said. “We were controlling the match fully, and all of a sudden we stopped on every court. This is what happens when you protect the score. This is a tough lesson that we had to learn today. You’ve got to go out there and take it. You can’t hope that someone’s going to give it to you just because they are so far behind.
“It’s a hard lesson for us and a disappointing loss for sure. But you…
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