University of Oregon
No. 8 USC
Ducks Come Up Just Short to No. 8 USC
03/27/16 | Men's Tennis
EUGENE, Ore. – The Ducks came within points of a win but ultimately fell 4-3 to No. 8 USC Sunday afternoon at the Student Tennis Center.
HOW IT HAPPENED: Oregon (13-4) won the doubles point for the 11th straight match as victories from Nos. 2 and 3 clinched the first point of the match. Daan Maasland and Simon Stevens won their seventh straight match as they downed Max de Vroome and Jake DeVine at No. 2. The Trojan pair led 3-2 before the Ducks won three straight to take a 5-3 lead and eventually won 6-4.
At No. 3, Cormac Clissold and Thomas Laurent extended their winning streak to 10 matches with a win over Tanner Smith and Jack Jaede. UO held a 4-2 lead before USC came back to tie it up at 4-all. The Ducks fought back, winning 6-4 to clinch the first point of the match.
At No. 1, Jayson Amos and Armando Soemarno fought back from a 5-2 deficit to win three straight games to tie it up at 5-all. USC duo Nick Crystal and Laurens Verboven had just pulled ahead at 6-5 when the match was called.
In singles, de Vroome tied the match up at 1-all with a straight set win at No. 2 over Laurent. The Ducks then regained the lead as Jayson Amos upset 58th-ranked Logan Smith 6-2, 6-1 at No. 4. Amos never trailed in the first set as he jumped out to a 4-0 route. Smith was able to grab the first game in the second set, but it was all Amos after that as the junior won six straight to take the match.
The Oregon lead was short-lived as Nick Crystal tied the match up at 2-2 with a victory over Maasland at No. 1. The Trojans then took their first lead of the day with a straight-set victory at No. 6.
The remaining two matches at Nos. 3 and 5 came down to the wire. Cormac Clissold won both his sets in the tiebreak to score the third UO point. He tied the first set up at 6-all with Thibault Forget and then won 7-5 in the breaker. In the second set, Clissold trailed 6-5 before holding serve to tie it up at 6-all and force the breaker. There, he led the entire way and won 7-3 to take the match, giving Forget his first loss of the spring season.
At No. 3, Simon Stevens rallied to overcome a 3-0 deficit in the first set to No. 109 Jake DeVine to tie it up at 3-all and then again at 6-all, forcing the tiebreak. The two went back and forth in the breaker with Stevens winning 9-7. In the second set, DeVine held on to win 7-5 and force the third set. In the third, DeVine broke Stevens' serve to go up 5-4 and then won it on an ace at 40-40.
UP NEXT: UO will close out its home schedule next weekend when it hosts Arizona at 3 p.m. Friday afternoon and then Utah Sunday at 12 p.m.
