No. 8 men’s tennis opens season strong

The No. 8 men’s tennis team opened the 2016 season by hosting the ITA kick-off event at Marks Tennis Stadium, and they came back to defeat Tulane in the championship to earn a spot in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.

USC fell behind early as Tulane started off quickly in doubles and got the point. Extending their lead, the Green Waves earned three quick wins in singles play, where they had No. 1 player in the nation Dominik Koepfer, as well as their fourth and sixth singles, to clinch the match.

Against UC Davis, USC’s doubles duo junior Nick Crystal and freshman Laurens Verboven paired up to beat Adamson/Levie with the score of 6-1. Senior Max de Vroome and freshman Jack Jaede cruised through Bacharach/Whittle and gave USC the doubles point with a 6-2 win.

In singles, No. 41 Crystal started off, quickly beating No. 38 Alec Adamson 6-1, 6-0. Jaede brought the third point of the day with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Everett Maltby. Shortly after, junior Rob Bellamy defeated Eli Whittle with the same score. In the remaining matches, freshman Jake DeVine scored a double 7-5 to secure a win against Bryce McKelvie, while Verboven took three sets to beat James Wade 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. Freshman Logan Smith was the last one to finish, topping Brett Bacharach 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 giving the Trojans a 7-0 win.

Pepperdine and UC Davis went back on Saturday morning for the consolation match with UCD edging the final point and sealing a third place finish.

Then, USC and Tulane took to the courts for the championship match. The doubles duo of Crystal and Verboven fell to the nationally-ranked team of Chi-San Jao and Koepfer with a final score of 6-1. It didn’t go any better for third doubles, where DeVine and sophomore Tanner Smith were outplayed by Sebastian Rey and Constantin Schmitz 6-2. The Trojans didn’t start well in singles and the first loss of the season seemed to be a concrete possibility.

In the first singles match, de Vroome immediately lost his serve in the first game, and Crystal found himself 0-3 after few minutes. The Trojans lost four of the six first sets, but hope came from courts 4 and 5, where Smith and DeVine secured their first sets with the score of 6-3. DeVine quickly went on to close the set at 6-1 against Nikolas Tukic, bringing the score to a tie.

Tulane took the lead back after Koepfer outplayed de Vroome in a hard fought match that ended with a double 6-3. Smith tied again, finishing 6-3, 6-4 against Rey, taking advantage of an early break in the second set. Crystal, after dropping the first set 0-6, went up 5-2 before being caught again at 5-all. There his experience played a big role and he conquered the second set with the score of 7-5. The third set went on easily, as Crystal took advantage of an early break and closed with the score of 0-6, 7-5, 6-2 to give the Trojans the lead for the first time in the day. Verboven fought hard in the second set but eventually lost 3-6, 5-7 to Alex Van Cott.

All the eyes then shifted to court 6, where Thibault Forget had tied the score at 1-1, winning his second set for 6-3. Both players felt the pressure of the match, but it was Jao from Tulane who went up 4-2 in the third. There, the Frenchman took his game to the next level, and managed to score four consecutive games, ending the match at 3-6, 6-3 and 6-4, giving the Trojans a 4-3 win.

The win is the seventh consecutive title in this event for the Trojans, which earned a ticket for the ITA National Team Indoor Championships that will take place Feb. 12-15 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The next appointment for the Trojans is the Pac-12/SEC showdown at UCLA, where they will take on Florida Saturday at 10 a.m. and Georgia Sunday at the same time.