No. 5 men’s tennis splits weekend series


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A road trip to the Bay Area this weekend yielded a win over No. 27 Cal and an upset loss to No. 36 Stanford for the No. 5 USC men’s tennis team.

The Trojans topped the Bears, 4-2, on April 10. The Trojan duo of senior Eric Johnson and sophomore Conner Farren and the pair of junior Max de Vroome and freshman Thibault Forget both fell by scores of 6-3 as the Bears took the doubles point to open the day. In singles, Cal’s Andre Goransson upset senior Yannick Hanfmann 6-4, 6-1 to put the Bears up 2-0.

The Trojans, however, rallied to claim the next four points and the match. Senior Jonny Wang topped Bears’ Oskar Wikberg 6-4, 6-1, de Vroome overcame Cal’s J.T. Nishimura’s 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, and senior Roberto Quiroz defeated Filip Bergevi 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. Sophomore Nick Crystal closed the day out for the Trojans with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory over the Bears’ Mads Engsted.

After next heading to Palo Alto, the Trojans were edged out by Stanford 4-3 on April 11. Against the Cardinal, USC struggled once again in doubles play. De Vroome and Forget fell 6-3 to Stanford’s Nolan Paige and David Wilczynski. Johnson and Wang next dropped their match 6-2 to the Cardinal pair of Tom Fawcett and Maciek Romanowicz, giving the Cardinal the doubles point.

In singles, De Vroome put the Trojans back on terms 1-1 with a 6-4, 6-4 win against Paige. Next, Stanford’s David Hsu beat Crystal 6-3, 6-4 to put the Cardinal back up, but Wang defeated the Cardinal’s Robert Stineman 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 to bring the match even at 2-2. Fawcett defeated Hanfmann 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, but Johnson topped Wilczynski 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 to bring the result down to the final match. Stanford’s John Morrissey upset senior Roberto Quiroz 6-7 (5), 7-6 (2), 6-3, to clinch the win for the Cardinal.

Now 19-4 overall, the Trojans will head across town to face UCLA for their final match of the regular season this Thursday, before taking part in the Pac-12 Championships next week.