Cal Poly’s Men’s Tennis had a rough weekend in Eugene, Oregon, being defeated in all three matches that they played. The Mustangs lost to Oregon on Friday, March 5 by a score of 0-7, the University of Portland on Saturday, March 6 by a score of 3-4, and Oregon again on Sunday, March 7 by a score of 0-4.
After the weekend series, Cal Poly falls to 4-7 on the season. Oregon, the No. 41 team in the country, climbed to 10-2 and Portland is now 4-1 after their win.
Friday
In their first match against a ranked opponent this season, the Mustangs were handled in a decisive 7-0 victory for the Oregon Ducks at the Student Tennis Center in Eugene.
The match began with the doubles point being secured by the Ducks after the No. 1 pair of redshirt junior Roman Shenkiryk and redshirt freshman Joe Leather lost 6-4 and the No. 2 duo of freshman Noah Berry and redshirt senior Antoine Noel fell by a score of 6-3.
The Ducks continued their rout with five consecutive straight-set victories in singles play, first with Quinn Vandecasteele’s victory against Berry at the No. 3 spot (6-0, 6-2).
Next, redshirt sophomore Gary Vardanyan lost to Oregon’s Brandon Lam (6-3, 6-0), followed up by redshirt junior Alex Stater’s loss to Joshua Charlton (6-2, 6-1), who is ranked No. 30 in the country.
The next match saw Oregon’s Emmanuel Coste besting Noel (6-1, 6-2) in the No. 2 spot. The streak of straight-set matches ended with redshirt freshman Fernando Fonseca taking Oregon’s Luke Vandecasteele to all three sets, but ultimately losing in the final set (6-3, 3-6, 1-0).
After losing all seven points in the match, Cal Poly faced the University of Portland the next day, once again at the Student Tennis Center in Eugene.
Saturday
Cal Poly played a close match against the Pilots of the University of Portland on Saturday, losing 4-3.
The Mustangs opened up the match by winning the doubles point, with victories by the pair of Leather and Shenkiryk and the pair of Stater and Vardanyan, 6-3 and 6-4 respectively.
Noel and Berry lost to Portland’s No. 2 pair of Eleftherios Neos and Issa Yoshida by a score of 6-2.
Kicking off singles play, Portland evened the score to 1-1 after Neos bested Noel in straight sets (6-1, 7-6). The Pilots continued their scoring when their No. 1 Sema Pankin narrowly beat Stater in a close straight-sets match (7-6, 7-5).
Cal Poly made the score 2-2 off the efforts of Vardanyan when he beat Nikolas Tvedt at the No. 5 spot in three sets (7-5, 5-7, 6-2).
Cal Poly retook their lead with Leather’s comeback victory at the No. 4 spot (2-6, 6-3, 6-4). This would be the final score by the Mustangs in this match.
Portland’s comeback began when Berry took Yoshida to all three sets but lost in the final set (6-4, 5-7, 6-3) to even the match score to 3-3.
Portland took the victory in the final matchup when Fonseca lost in three sets in a back-and-forth battle with the Pilots’ Leo Hibi (7-6, 4-6, 6-4).
Now 0-2 on the weekend, the Mustangs looked to pick up some more singles wins in the next match against Oregon on Sunday.
Sunday
Cal Poly lost their third match at the Student Tennis Center on Sunday when Oregon took a 4-0 win over the Mustangs.
The Ducks won the doubles point with strong wins over the Cal Poly pairs of Noel & redshirt junior Andrew Whitehouse, and Stater & Vardanyan, winning 6-2 and 6-3 respectively.
No. 41 Oregon maintained their domination over Cal Poly when Noel lost in straight sets in the No. 3 spot (6-4, 6-3).
Cal Poly’s scoring troubles continued when Ryoma Matsushita defeated Fonseca in straight sets (6-2, 6-4).The Ducks secured their victory when Brandon Lam narrowly beat Vardanyan in straight sets (7-6, 7-5), making the score 4-0.
After Vardanyan’s loss, the rest of the match was called off as Oregon had already won the match. This left the matchups with Stater, Berry and Leather unfinished, with Stater and Berry losing in their matches at the time.
Cal Poly, who has had 10 of their first 11 matches on the road, begins a five-game home stand against Grand Canyon at the Mustang Tennis Complex on Friday, March 12.
