Pac-12 Championships On Deck for Men's Tennis
04/22/15 | Men's Tennis
The Oregon men's tennis team will begin their postseason journey this week when they travel to Libbey Park in Ojai, Calif., for the Pac-12 Championships. The Ducks will play as the No. 5 seed against the No. 8 seed Arizona (8-18, 0-7) in the opening round on Wednesday at 12 p.m. (PT).
Ranked No. 50 in the ITA Team Rankings, UO brings a 14-8 record into this week's conference championships. The Ducks will likely need to win at least one, if not two matches to have a chance at an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.
Scouting the Wildcats
Although Arizona was winless in conference play, the Wildcats returned Naoki Takeda to their lineup in their last two matches against Washington and Utah. The Wildcats will expect to receive a boost from their senior who is currently the No. 62 singles player in the country with a team-best 23-5 record on the year.
UA took a point off the Ducks when they played two weekends ago in Tucson, but the Ducks still easily dispatched the Wildcats 4-1 to earn their first conference win of the season.
Last Time Out
The Ducks gave their two seniors – Daniel Sardu and Joey Swaysland – a parting gift this past weekend when they defeated the No. 56 Washington Huskies 4-1 at the outdoor courts at the Student Tennis Center to finish the regular season 14-8 and 3-4 in Pac-12 competition.
Oregon claimed the doubles point thanks to an easy win 6-2 from Sardu and Swaysland on court two, and Simon Stevens and Daan Maasland completed the job with an incredible 7-6 (10-8) victory over the No. 48-ranked doubles team in Emmett Egger and Jeff Hawke.
Stevens won his 14th-straight singles match after a 6-2, 6-3 win over Egger on court three, and Jayson Amos made it a 3-0 UO lead after a straight-set victory of his own (6-3, 6-4) over Gal Hakak.
After UW picked up a point, Cormac Clissold shut the door with a 7-5, 6-4 win on court five to give the Ducks their third win over the Huskies in their last four meetings.
Hoping for Déjà Vu
The Ducks earned their ticket to the NCAA Tournament last season thanks to their late-season work in the Pac-12 Championships last season. With an opening round 4-2 win over Washington and a 4-2 upset over Stanford in the quarterfinals, UO did just enough to earn their spot in the final postseason tournament. That same potential route begins tomorrow at noon (PT) for Oregon.
Maasland Moving Up
After receiving a No. 125 ranking last week, the junior from Geldrop, Netherlands moved up 10 spots and now sits in the No. 115 spot. He is 21-8 on the year with a 9-3 record in duals playing on court one.
Part of Ojai
The Pac-12 Championships will keep with tradition as the featured event at this year's 115th Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, which attracts 1,600 of the best college, junior and open players from the Western states. The annual event, started by William Thacher in 1896, has been played at the same site and interrupted only five times. If this tournament, put on entirely by volunteer efforts on public and privately owned courts, seems an unlikely place to see championship quality players, consider who has appeared here: Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport, Michael Chang, Rick Leach, Tracy Austin, Billy Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors and the Bryan twins. These tennis greats are among more than 85 former players at The Ojai who have gone on to win one or more Grand Slam events as professional tennis players, all of whom are listed on Libbey Park's “Wall of Fame.”
Players Mentioned
