In its first competition in two months, the Cal men’s tennis team split in two to compete in two separate tournaments to kick off the new year.
From Jan. 18 to 20, four Bears traveled to Palm Springs to play at the National Collegiate Tennis Classic, while another set of four competed at the Sherwood Collegiate Cup in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Despite most of the Bears having a rough start to begin each tournament, the team shook off the winter rust by the end of the weekend.
At the Sherwood Collegiate Cup, the Cal duo of sophomores Jack Sanford and Nikhil Jayashankar reached the doubles consolation semifinals. Freshmen Mads Engsted and Wyatt Houghton similarly made it to the doubles consolation quarterfinals.
At the more prominent National Collegiate Tennis Classic, which featured players from No. 6 Georgia and No. 13 Mississippi, junior Campbell Johnson clinched the singles trophy, while the doubles duo of Johnson and senior Christoffer Konigsfeldt nabbed the doubles trophy.
“We were a little sluggish at the beginning,” said head coach Peter Wright. “But the overall quality of play was high throughout the weekend.”
On Friday, Johnson was the only Cal player at the NCTC to win in his singles match against Mississippi’s fifth-ranked Jonas Lutjen, 7-5, 6-1. Konigsfeldt fell to William Kallberg of Ole Miss in two sets.
Ben and Riki McLachlan lost to Georgia’s Ben Wagland and No. 16 Hernus Pieters, respectively. The No.7 McLachlan doubles pair also dropped its only doubles match of the day to Georgia’s KU Singh and Nathan Pasha, 8-4.
The Bears fared better on Saturday, as former Georgia player Johnson continued his winning streak in singles and doubles against his old team. Johnson easily defeated the Bulldogs’ Marco Nunez in two sets and in doubles with Konigsfeldt pulled an upset of the Pieters and Wagland duo, 8-4.
The McLachlans fought a tough back-and-forth doubles match against Mississippi’s Johan Backstsrom and Stefan Lindmark before narrowly losing, 8-7 (10-8).
“The McLachlans played some good doubles, but they were a little bit rusty and they lost some of their close matches,” Wright said.
On the last day, Johnson claimed the singles crown despite not playing in singles on Sunday due to a default.
Konigsfeldt and Johnson played their doubles championship match against Singh and Pasha. Although the Cal pair was behind during its last game, Konigsfeldt and Johnson came back to win it at tiebreak by breaking the Bulldogs’ serve with a strong return, 8-7(4).
“Their doubles victories came as a result of the strength of Campbell’s returns,” Wright said. “That was probably one of the areas that made a difference for them, especially when they got behind.”
Although the Bears’ wins and losses counted for future NCAA selection and rankings, Cal treated the tournaments as warm-ups for the spring season, which begins on Jan. 25.
“We really just wanted to get prepared for the ITA season kick-off this coming weekend,” Johnson said. “Even though we started off a little rusty, we got our kicks out by the end of the tournament.”
Janice Chua covers men’s tennis. Contact her at [email protected]