Tough Midweek Match Looms For Ducks Wednesday

EUGENE, Ore. - The Oregon men's tennis team extended its home stand, adding a match against Utah State Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. The late addition makes up for UO's canceled match at UNLV a week ago. The Ducks are currently on a five match winning streak, maintaining a perfect 7-0 home record.

MATCH 11: #40 OREGON (8-2, 0-0) vs. #43 UTAH STATE (7-3, 1-0)
Wednesday, Feb. 28 | 4:30 p.m.
Eugene, Ore. | Student Tennis Center
Live Stats: GoDucks.com
Live Video: GoDucks.com

WEEKLY NOTES
LAST TIME OUT
The Ducks flew through their weekend doubleheader, recording back-to-back 4-0 sweeps over Northern Arizona and Gonzaga. In doubles play, senior Akihiro Tanaka and freshman Riki Oshima recorded their second win of the year, downing NAU's Thomas Fisher and Felix Shumann in a tiebreaker set 7-6(1) to set the tone for the day. The doubles pair of Cormac Clissold and Thomas Laurent recorded two victories on the day to improve to 13-4 on the year. In singles action, five different Ducks recorded victories throughout Saturday's doubleheader. Clissold was the only Duck to record two singles victories, finishing the day a perfect 4-0 in both singles and doubles play.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
With the Ducks' two sweeps over the weekend, Oregon remains undefeated at the Student Tennis Center with a 7-0 home record. Wisconsin is the only team to record any wins in Eugene, recording two singles victories to mark the only points UO has given up at home all season. Oregon did not concede a single point in its first four home matches, opening the year with back-to-back 7-0 sweeps over Idaho and Portland State. Since their season opening doubleheader, the Ducks have had four 4-0 sweeps in their last five home matches. With 15 of 25 matches played at home this season, UO hopes to make the Student Tennis Center one of the toughest places to play. Last season, the Ducks finished the year 10-1 at home, and have a combined 51-10 record over the last five years when playing at the STC.

THE STREAK
Senior Cormac Clissold and sophomore Ty Gentry extended their singles winning streaks this past weekend, hitting double-digits. So far this spring, the two Ducks are undefeated in dual play with Clissold standing at 7-0 while Gentry is right behind with a 6-0 singles record. Dating back to the fall, Clissold and Gentry have won 11 and 10 matches in a row, respectively. The single-season consecutive singles match winning streak is currently 18, set by Thomas Laurent last season. Overall, Gentry is UO's team-leader with a 15-2 record while Clissold is close behind at 13-2.

STEVENS, CLISSOLD CONTINUE TO CLIMB
In their final seasons at Oregon, seniors Simon Stevens and Cormac Clissold have clawed their way up the UO record books. Tied for 15th at the start of the 2017-18 season, Stevens has lept into a tie for sixth thanks to a 14-5 record this season. Currently, Stevens has a 69-32 career singles record, placing him in a tie with Oded Teig. The Belgium international needs just six more wins to crack the top five on UO's all-time career singles wins list.

Clissold, who started the year just outside UO's top 15, has climbed all the way up to 11th. The Australian international has a 59-26 career record at UO. With his two wins this past weekend, Cormac lept his brother Aaron Clissold, as well as Alex Cornelissen, for 11th.

Both Clissold and Stevens are already among Oregon's top five most successful doubles players as well, ranking third and fifth, respectively. Individually, they are right behind one another with Clissold accumulating 73 doubles wins during his career and Stevens logging 70 wins.

IN THE RANKINGS
The Ducks made their first appearance on the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's team rankings this week. With the rankings expanded to the top 50, Oregon came in at No. 40, just ahead of this Wednesday's opponent Utah State, which is ranked No. 43.

Thomas Laurent and Cormac Clissold jumped up one spot in the latest ITA rankings. The duo is ranked 16th in the country with an 13-4 record this season, 5-2 in dual play. Laurent and Clissold sit just five wins behind Robin Cambier's and Jeff Mullen's all-time career doubles wins record, with a record of 52-11. Their .825 winning percentage is currently the second highest career doubles winning percentage in UO history.

Individually, Laurent remained one of the top 20 players in the country, dropping one spot to No. 13. He is currently 6-1 this spring season, 14-3 overall, playing every match at the No. 1 spot.

GRAB YOUR BROOMS
So far this season, the Ducks have recorded six victories without conceding a single point. UO's single-match dominance has slowly risen since the 2010 season. In 2010, Oregon recorded three match sweeps with that number continually rising each season since, culminating in 10 perfect wins last year. With half the season still to play, UO has the opportunity to surpass that mark and raise the bar even higher.

THAT CERTAIN JE NE SAIS QUOI
French international Thomas Laurent entered the 2018 spring season as one of the highest ranked players in program history at sixth in the nation. Laurent is coming off a sophomore campaign in which he broke the single-season wins record with a 30-7 overall record. He continued to build on his Oregon legacy this past fall, reaching the semifinals of the ITA All-Americans and ITA Fall Nationals, both program firsts. Laurent finished the fall slate 8-2 overall in singles play with five wins over ranked opponents, including a 5-7, 6-4, 6-0 win over ninth-ranked William Bushamuka of Kentucky in the opening round of the Fall National Championships.

Midway through his junior season, Laurent is ninth on the UO all-time singles wins list with a 63-16 career record. His astonishing .797 winning percentage is currently the best career winning percentage in program history. The only other Duck with a .700 or better win percentage is Jayson Amos, whose career singles record of 93-34 (.732) ranks first on the UO all-time list.

FRESHMEN MAKING THEIR MARK
Oregon's two new additions this spring, Riki Oshima and Charles Roberts, have made an immediate impact for the Ducks this season. Roberts and partner Armando Soemarno single-handedly secured the doubles points for UO in its season opener against Idaho, rallying from three games down to win the match, 7-5. So far this season, the pair is 6-2 overall, while sporting a 4-1 record at the No. 1 doubles position.

Currently 5-3 on the year in singles play, Oshima started the year 2-0 dropping only one game throughout his first two career matches. The Japanese international was a force to be reckoned with, sweeping Idaho's Bence Da Re, 6-0, 6-0, in his first-ever match. He followed that stellar performance with a 6-1, 6-0 victory at the No. 4 spot against his Portland State counterpart. Currently, Oshima is on a two-match winning streak grinding out a 7-6(3), 1-6, 1-0(9) victory over SDSU's R. Gonzalez Almazan to get back above .500 on the year, before picking up a victory at the No. 6 spot against Gonzaga. Oshima has also partnered with senior Akihiro Tanaka twice this season, recording a tiebreaker win, 7-6(1), against their Northern Arizona counterparts in their last outing to improve to 2-0 on the year.

THE STEVENS-GENTRY CONNECTION
Coming into the season, senior Simon Stevens and sophomore Ty Gentry had only paired six times in 2016-17 for a 3-3 record, including a 1-2 spring season record.

At the start of the 2017 fall season, the duo immediately turned heads, advancing to the finals of the Boise State Classic before dropping a close match, 8-6, in the finals. The pair reunited at the Gopher Invitational eventually taking home the maroon draw championship in UO's final tournament of the fall.

So far this spring season, the pair is still a force to be reckoned with, leading the team with a 7-1 doubles record. Overall, Stevens and Gentry are 15-2 this year. With roughly half the season still to play, the Duck pair needs just five more wins to crack the career doubles top 15 wins list.

UP NEXT
Following Wednesday's match, the Ducks head to Iowa to take on Cornell and the Hawkeyes Saturday, Mar. 3, and Sunday, Mar. 4, respectively, in their last non-conference matches before opening conference play.