Men’s tennis coasts past competition in early tournament


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Senior Bradley Frye hits a backhand during a match against UC Irvine graduate student Riccardo Roberto Sunday.
Senior Bradley Frye hits a backhand during a match against UC Irvine graduate student Riccardo Roberto Sunday. (Andrew Kerner | Daily Trojan)

This past weekend, No. 9 USC men’s tennis team went up against multiple California schools at home in the David X. Marks Tennis Stadium. The squad played two matches  Friday and one Sunday to round out the weekend. 

In Friday’s games, USC first went up against UC Davis. Even though the Trojans ended up sweeping the Aggies 7-0, they faced some challenges during the matches. 

In the initial doubles rounds, USC went up 1-0 after the pairing of junior Stefan Dostanic and freshman Peter Makk won a close 6-4 match against juniors Mitchell Davis and Andrei Volgin in the number 1 slot. The Aggies responded and tied it up 1-1, after juniors Brett Brinkman and Andras Necz edged out the Trojan duo of graduate student Paul Barretto and freshman Ryan Colby 4-6. 

In a tightly-contested doubles matchup to determine the doubles point, junior Ryder Jackson and his partner freshman Wojtek Marek won in tiebreaker 7-6 (3), against Davis’ freshman duo of Ryan Morgan and Ryan Torres. 

After the thrilling doubles matches, the Trojans went on to easily sweep the Aggies during the singles matchups in straight sets with notable wins from No. 6 ranked Stefan Dostanic, No. 70 ranked Bradley Frye and No. 35 ranked Peter Makk to give USC the 7-0 win. 

The second match of the day against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps ended in a 7-0 final result. 

The Trojans showed strong performances in doubles. The pairing of Colby and Frye dominated the doubles team of junior Ian Freer and freshman Matthew Robinson 6-1. Then, the duo of Barretto and Makk won 6-3 against seniors Ethan Carroll and grade captain Robert Liu to deliver the Trojans the doubles point. 

Once again, USC had sweeps in straight sets during the singles round leading into Sunday’s play against UC Irvine. 

Although the Trojans could not to sweep the Anteaters in doubles play, they still managed a 6-1 win. 

USC’s best doubles team with No. 10 ranked Dostanic and Frye defeated Irvine’s graduate student Riccardo Roberto and sophomore Thomas Smart  6-1. 

Barretto and Makk gave the Trojans the doubles point again winning 6-1 against juniors Ali Amiri and Matthew Sah. The Trojans cruised through singles again, winning straight sets, except for the final matchup where Amiri ousted Barretto in a tiebreaker, 6-4, 2-6, 1-0 (10-7). 

Head Coach Brett Masi praised the team’s performance during the Irvine matchup, especially during doubles. 

“We are really kinda preaching about just being a little more assertive and aggressive in our mindset,” said Masi in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “We were taking balls at the net, trying to be aggressive with our serves and first returns.”

The weekend sweep leads into the ITA Kickoff tournament next weekend with USC playing Pepperdine, Denver and Harvard.

Masi highlighted the mindset of the team going into the tournament after this past weekend’s victories.

“Just think we are going to be a little more at ease,” Masi said. “I think the guys know that level is going to be better, like I said, but none of these teams were slouches by any means.” 

The Trojans will play their first match against Harvard Saturday where the winner will have a spot in the championship game Sunday.