University of Oregon
No. 54 UC Santa Barbara
Ducks Earn Big-Time Sweep Over UCSB
01/18/16 | Men's Tennis
HOW IT HAPPENED: In an exciting match from start to finish, the Ducks earned the first point of the day by clinching two doubles matches.
Jayson Amos and Armando Soemarno captured a 6-3 win at No. 1 while the other two matches came down to the wire. At No. 2 Daan Maasland and Simon Stevens broke serve to go up 6-5 on UCSB pair Oliver Sec and Anders Holm. With Stevens serving, Oregon and the Gauchos traded points to open the game, but the Ducks won the next three points to win the game and take the set 7-5.
Carrying that momentum in singles, it was Amos who put Oregon up 2-0 with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Sec at No. 4. The next two points were hard-fought as the Ducks won tiebreakers in the second set at both No. 1 and 3.
Simon Stevens blanked Nicolas Moreno 6-0 in the first set at No. 3, but the second set was much closer as Stevens came back to tie it up at 6-all and force a tie break. There, he dropped the first two points but won the next five to go up 5-2. Moreno took the next two but Stevens won back-to-back points to take the breaker 7-4 and win the match.
At No. 1, Thomas Laurent won 6-2 easily in the first set over Morgan Mays and then jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the second. However, Mays recovered and won the next four to tie it up at 4-all. The two then traded games and eventually Laurent held serve to tie it up at 6-6 and force the tiebreak. The breaker was all Laurent as he blanked Mays 7-0 to capture the match and clinch the crucial fourth point in the Ducks' favor.
Daan Maasland then put Oregon up 5-0 when he won 6-4, 6-4 at No. 2 over Nathan Eshmade and the final two matches at No. 5 and 6 came down to a third-set tiebreaker.
At No. 5 Cormac Clissold won 6-3 in his first set over Cody Rakela, but lost the second set 7-6 (7-1). In the third set tiebreak, Clissold won the opening point, but then dropped the next three to fall into a 3-1 deficit. However, the sophomore fought back and tied it up at 5-all. From there, the two would be tied up again at 6-6, but Clissold won the final four points to take the breaker 10-6.
In the final match, Ethan Young-Smith came back to win his opening set 7-5 but then fell 6-3 in the second to Anders Holm. A marathon tiebreak would ensue as Young-Smith was down 8-5 before knocking off three straight points to tie it up at 8-8. From there, neither one won two points in a row until Young-Smith clinched the win at 13-11.
“We showed up today and played with unbelievable energy,” head coach Nils Schyllander said. “It started at the top of our doubles and went all the way through our singles and we played a complete match.”
UP NEXT: The Ducks will head to Waco, Texas next weekend to participate in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Up first will be No. 56 Old Dominion at 3 p.m. CT/1 p.m. PT on Saturday. The Ducks will then play again on Sunday against either No. 4 Baylor or No. 68 UC Irvine depending on their finish on Saturday.
