After a month of piling up injury after injury, the Cal men’s tennis team has almost every reason to believe it can finally hit its stride this week.
In the past month alone, four players from the starting lineup have fallen to injury, forcing the team to restructure its doubles and singles lineups to account for the loss of players.
However, the Bears used this past weekend to rest up a few of their players who sustained injuries in previous matches, including freshman Mads Engsted and junior Chase Melton.
While they sat out of the weekend tournament, the remainder of the squad took a break from dual matches to compete at the Pacific Coast Doubles Championship in La Jolla, Calif. The tournament results did not count for NCAA selection.
“Our goal for the weekend was to get some good practice, good rest and good training in,” said Cal coach Peter Wright. “The results didn’t really matter, but we accomplished our goals and played reasonably well in the tournament.”
After a week of training and recuperation, the No. 24 Bears are finally prepared to play with an almost complete squad against powerhouse No. 4 Duke this coming Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Hellman Tennis Complex. According to Wright, the only person missing from the roster this week will be senior co-captain Riki McLachlan, who is out for the season due to a knee injury.
Although health issues will not be a problem for the Bears this week, the team will have to step up its game when it battles against a Duke squad that is 12-2 in its dual-match season.
In their past eight matches, the Blue Devils earned seven victories and had only one loss to No. 1 Virginia. The team boasts five ranked singles players, including No. 9 Henrique Cunha, and three ranked doubles pairs. With his 117-26 career record, Cunha has compiled the highest singles winning percentage in Blue Devils history.
Cunha and Raphael Hemmeler, who form the No. 4 doubles team in the country, will pose a serious challenge for the Bears, who have had the upper hand in doubles in all of their past matches. Cal’s No. 18 duo of senior Christoffer Konigsfeldt and junior Campbell Johnson will face off against Cunha and Hemmeler on the top court.
In singles, the Cal squad features four nationally ranked singles players, led by junior Ben McLachlan, Konigsfeldt and Johnson on the first three courts.
The Bears do not have the numbers on their side, especially after losing a disappointingly close match to San Diego State in their last dual match on Thursday. The Cal team that had been struggling to stay healthy fell in all three courts in the doubles round to hand the victory over to the Aztecs, 4-3.
Despite the drop in rankings, however, Cal expects to see a turnaround this week — the first time in a month the squad has not had to battle injuries on top of its opponent on the court.
“Both our singles and doubles are very strong, so I don’t think anybody’s going to underestimate us,” Wright said. “We have some growth that we can do over the upcoming weeks that I think will finally show up in the results column.”
Janice Chua covers men’s tennis. Contact her at [email protected].