No. 29 Cal Falls In Big Slam

Cal’s Philip Hjorth won in doubles and singles in Saturday’s Big Slam.

MTEN4/15/2023 6:46 PM | By: Cal Athletics

STANFORD – The 29th-ranked California men’s tennis team took a 3-2 lead over 20th-ranked Stanford in Saturday’s Big Slam on The Farm. but the Golden Bears lost the last two singles matches to fall to the Cardinal, 4-3.
 
Cal’s record is now 11-8 (3-3 Pac-12). Stanford is 13-7 (4-2).
 
After Cal lost at court-one doubles, the Bears’ veteran duo of Philip Hjorth and Yuta Kikuchi defeated Nishesh Basavareddy and Max Basing, 7-6(3), on court three to even the contest. In a tight match on court two, the Cardinal’s Aryan Chaudhary and Filip Kolasinski edged Cal’s 61st-ranked Ryder Jackson and Lucas Magnaudet, 7-6(4), to hand Stanford the doubles point and a 1-0 lead.
 
In the first meeting between the two rivals on Jan. 20 in Berkeley, Kikuchi defeated Arthur Fery, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, to clinch Cal’s 4-3 win in a nonconference match. This time, the fifth-ranked Fery beat the 29th-ranked Kikuchi, 6-3, 6-3, to give Stanford a 2-0 lead in a Pac-12 clash.
 
Derrick Chen started a rally for the Bears with his 6-4, 6-3 victory over Kolasinski on court four. Hjorth then bested Chaudhary, 6-4, 7-6(3), on court five to tie the match, 2-2. Siddhant Banthia – playing in his first Big Slam at Stanford – followed with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 win over Isaac Gorelik on court six, and Cal took a 3-2 lead.
 
The Bears needed to win one of the last two matches to defeat Stanford.
 
But Cal lost both three-setters, with Stanford taking the 4-3 win when Basing beat Carl Emil Overbeck, 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-2, on court three.

“We left a lot on the table in doubles,” said Kris Kwinta, Cal’s Peter Wright Director of Men’s Tennis. “We need a lot of work in that department. The doubles point cost us dearly.

 

“Nevertheless, this team has a lot of fight and started picking it up in second sets in singles. We were up 3-2 and had a good chance of taking them down here. We just couldn’t find the best form in the key moments of the match. It happens. It’s a little bit disappointing for sure, but we’re a dangerous and a feisty team. We’re not going to go away easily without a fight. That’s the best thing about this team. They always find the fight in them. We just have to find it a little bit…