Tennis sweeps weekend

The No. 9 men’s tennis team stayed undefeated at home after two back-to-back wins against No. 16 California and No. 36 Stanford over the weekend.

“It was great to open the facility with the energy we had today,” head coach Peter Smith said after the team’s win over the Bears on Friday. “The energy from our crowd transferred to our team. It was just a gritty performance from the boys.”

The clinching point against Stanford on Saturday came from sophomore Thibault Forget on Court 5, propelling USC to a 6-1 win. With the win, the Trojans improved their conference record to 3-1.

The Trojans found themselves down after losing the doubles point early in the match. On Court 3, Forget and freshman Jake DeVine got up an early break before losing the match 6-3 to freshman Sameer Kumar and junior Yale Goldberg of Stanford. On Court 1, No. 38 pair of junior Nick Crystal and freshman Laurens Verboven fell short to sophomore Tom Fawcett and senior Maciek Romanowicz after losing the deciding point at 4-5, giving Stanford the first point of the day.

The singles action saw the Trojans getting the first set on four courts, with the other two close in score. DeVine, No. 109 in the singles ranking, put USC on the scoreboard after beating Kumar 6-1, 6-2 on Court 4. On Court 1, No. 25 senior Max de Vroome was able to upset No. 6 Fawcett in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5.

On Court 6, freshman Jack Jaede was broken when serving for the match and forced to a tiebreaker. Down 0-4, he came back and saved a set point before finishing the match 6-4 7-6(7), beating No. 110 Romanowicz.

Forget finished the match, beating senior Nolan Paige with the score of 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, clinching the dual.

Action went on and the Trojans were able to win the remaining two courts. No. 58 freshman Logan Smith defeated freshman Michael Genender 6-3, 0-6, 6-4. No. 55 Crystal defeated No. 56 sophomore David Wilczynski 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 in a close match that saw the Cardinal serving to close it out in the second set.

On Friday, the Trojans were able to beat the Golden Bears 4-2, after coming from behind once again. The doubles action saw the home team going down as Cal’s No. 44 junior Filip Bergevi and junior Florian Lakat took down USC’s top team of No. 38 Crystal/Verboven 6-0.

The Trojans responded with a win on Court 2 where de Vroome and Jaede tied the score after beating the Bear’s junior Andre Goransson and sophomore Billy Griffith 6-2.

On Court 3, Forget and sophomore Tanner Smith suffered a 6-3 loss to sophomore J.T. Nishimura and freshman Ryan Shen that awarded the Bears the first point of the day.

During singles play, however, the Men of Troy turned it around.

On Court 5, Forget tied the score at 1-1 with a win in straight sets 6-3, 6-1 against No. 62 senior Oskar Wikberg. It was followed by another win on Court 2 where No. 55 Crystal beat No. 40 Griffith 6-2, 6-4. No. 58 Smith pulled out an upset of the same score against No. 17 Goransson, bringing USC one point away from the match.

No. 109 DeVine had to surrender to Bergevi after a close match that ended with the score of 7-6(5) 6-4 for California, recording the only single loss of the weekend for the Trojans. The clinching point came from Court 1, as No. 25 de Vroome fought back after losing the first set to No. 28 Lakat, recording a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 win.

The Trojans are now 13-4 overall and will play two conference matches on the road, as they face Utah on April 8 and Arizona April 10.