No. 21 Ducks Edge UCSB, Laurent Sets Program Record

Sunday, March 5

Santa Barbara, CA

1:00 PM

University of Oregon

UC Santa Barbara

Photo by: Eric Evans/GoDucks.com

No. 21 Ducks Edge UCSB, Laurent Sets Program Record

03/05/17 | Men's Tennis

THOMAS LAURENT SET THE SCHOOL RECORD FOR CONSECUTIVE SINGLES WINS WITH HIS 16TH IN A ROW AS NO. 21 OREGON DEFEATED UCSB, 4-3.

By: Nate Krueger

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The 21st-ranked Oregon men's tennis team pulled out a close win over UC Santa Barbara, 4-3, and sophomore Thomas Laurent claimed a program-record 16th-straight singles win on Sunday afternoon.

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How it Happened: Playing outdoors for the first time this spring, the Ducks (11-2) were forced to climb out of an early hole after dropping the doubles point for the first time in their last 10 matches. In a ranked match-up at No. 1, the Ducks' Jayson Amos and Armando Soemarno suffered a rare loss at the hands of the eighth-ranked UCSB (5-3) duo of Simon Freund and Morgan Mays, 6-1. Kristian Prior and Cody Rakela clinched the point for the Gauchos with a 6-3 victory over Oregon's Simon Stevens and Akihiro Tanaka.

Mays gave UCSB a 2-0 lead with a 7-5, 6-1 win over Stevens on No. 2. Laurent, ranked 16th in the nation in singles, got the Ducks on the board with his record-breaking 16th-consecutive win, a 6-1, 6-3 win against Nicolas Moreno de Alboran (UCSB). The Ducks pulled even in the match courtesy of a 6-3, 7-6 win on court three by Tanaka over Freund.

A win by Cormac Clissold on No. 5, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 over the Guacho's Anders Holm, gave Oregon a 3-2 lead before Chase Masciorini (UCSB) pulled the match back to even with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 win over the Ducks' Ethan Young-Smith on No. 6.

Tied at 3-3, the match came down to the No. 4 singles spot with the Ducks' lone senior in Amos and UCSB's Rakela. Amos won a tight first set, 7-5, before Rakela came back to take control in the second set with a 6-1 win. With the match on the line, Amos pulled out a 7-5 victory in a battle of a third set to secure the Ducks' third-consecutive win.

Jayson Amos with the clinch for @OregonMTennis 4-3 win over UCSB!! @jaysonamos7 pic.twitter.com/Uio6OTYe2E
— Pierce Fettig (@piercefettig) March 6, 2017

Laurent Sets Record: Laurent continued his tremendous start to the spring with his record-breaking performance, exceeding the previous top mark of consecutive singles matches won set by Stevens (2015) and Robin Cambier (2012). With the win, Laurent remains undefeated in singles this spring (12-0), playing all his matches at the No. 1 spot, and is now 22-2 overall in 2016-17 to move into a tie for 10th for most singles wins in UO single-season history before the Ducks have even opened conference play. For his career, the Montpellier, France, native is 41-8 in singles and a perfect 16-0 on the top court.

Laurent also continued to find success in doubles with Clissold, as the pair claimed the lone doubles win of the day (7-6 (5), No. 2) for Oregon to improve to 15-2 this season and 10-1 in the spring dual matches. The win pushed the pair to 30-3 (.909) all-time together, moving them into a tie for sixth on the UO all-time doubles wins list.

Quotable: Head Coach Nils Schyllander
On the win...
"We responded very well to losing the doubles point. In singles, we came out with great energy across the board. It was very fitting to have our lone senior in Jayson be last on and clinch it in a tiebreaker."

On Laurent's record...
"Thomas is just so solid. I am very happy for him. It is well deserved and he has earned every inch of that record."

Notable: Amos claimed his 87th-career singles win, moving three wins within the program record of 90 set by Cambier … Tanaka improved to 11-4 in singles this season and 10-2 in dual matches in his first collegiate season.

Up Next: The Ducks will spend this week in Eugene before heading to San Diego, Calif., for the SP Invite (March 16-18). Pac-12 play looms for Oregon after that, which the Ducks will open at USC on March 31.