Four players from the Cal men’s tennis team experienced a switch of sorts this past weekend at the Battle in the Bay Tennis Classic.
From Oct. 12 to 14, seniors Christoffer Konigsfeldt and Riki McLachlan, junior transfer Campbell Johnson and freshman Mads Engsted traveled across the bay to compete in the fourth annual tournament at the California Tennis Club in San Francisco. The four Bears competed against top players from Division I schools such as No. 1 USC, No. 6 Pepperdine, No. 8 Duke and No. 9 Stanford.
While Konigsfeldt, McLachlan and Engsted all made it past the first round in the singles main draw, none could get past the round of 16.
Johnson, on the other hand, lost his round of 32-match to first-seeded Yannick Hanfmann. However, after moving down into the back draw, Johnson went four matches undefeated to win the consolation singles title on Sunday.
Engsted, who fought a hard battle against Hanfmann, eventually lost to USC’s best player, 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-1. However, after moving into the consolation draw, Engsted stole all four of his singles matches to claim the singles consolation title. In his final match, Engsted topped Cal Poly’s Matt Thomson, 6-7, 7-5, 10-1.
On the first day of play, Konigsfeldt, McLachlan and Engsted all bested their opponents in the first round of the main draw. Third-seeded Konigsfeldt edged Cal Poly’s Matt Thompson, 6-2, 6-3, while McLachlan similarly defeated Anthony Tsodikov of Stanford in two sets. Engsted fought to survive after losing his first set and finally nabbed the third set to win against Stanford’s Nolan Paige.
However, all three lost in the second round of the tournament’s main draw to three different Trojans. Konigsfeldt fell to USC’s Max De Vroom, McLachlan to fourth-seeded Eric Johnson and Engsted to Jonny Wang — all in two sets.
The second-seeded pair of Konigsfeldt and McLachlan won twice in the doubles draw. However, the senior duo were eliminated in the semifinals after falling to Paige and Tsodikov of Stanford, 8-6.
The Bears are set to play at one of their largest tournaments of the fall preseason, the ITA Northwest Regional Championships, on Oct. 19.
Janice Chua covers men’s tennis. Contact her at [email protected]
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