At this point in the season, the Cal men’s tennis team does not care about its ITA national ranking — it has bigger concerns.
The Bears are more worried about maintaining an even season record to pass the NCAA’s .500 rule. The .500 rule is a clause dictating that teams must have at least a .500 record against Division I squads in order to enter the NCAA team championships in May.
With their season record currently at 7-6 and a difficult conference schedule ahead of them, the Bears have sufficient reason to be worried.
“It’s going to be a challenge for us, given the strength of our opponents for the rest of the season,” said Cal coach Peter Wright. “We’re going to be battling close to that .500 record, so it’s really a must-win for us this weekend not so much for our rankings but to even make it to NCAA selection.”
This Saturday at 11 a.m., the No. 24 Bears will face off against TCU at the Bayard Friedman Tennis Center in Fort Worth, Texas. After Cal dropped a disappointingly close 4-3 decision to No. 12 Pepperdine last week, the Bears will look to treat this match and their next match against Baylor as much-needed victories.
After its trip to Texas, Cal will return home to start off conference play, battling against two top-three teams — No. 2 UCLA and No. 3 USC — in the same weekend.
“It’s going to be tough playing on the road and then coming back to face USC and UCLA,” Wright said. “But this will be a good spring break trip for us.”
By the numbers, the Bears boast a significant advantage over the Horned Frogs.
The Cal squad features three ranked singles players and three ranked doubles duos. Junior Ben McLachlan and senior co-captain Christoffer Konigsfeldt lead the Bears on the top two courts in singles, and the pair of Konigsfeldt and junior Campbell Johnson competes on the top court in doubles.
The Horned Frogs, on the other hand, boast only one ranked pair in the TCU duo of sophomores Nick Chappell and Will Stein.
But the Bears know the dual match victory will not come easily for the squad.
The Horned Frogs are 12-4 in their regular season so far, having most recently clinched a doubleheader this past Wednesday to run their winning streak to five matches. TCU topped Columbia with a 5-2 win after sweeping Prairie View A&M earlier in the day, 6-0.
“We’re expecting to have some big battles with them,” Wright said. “They’re well coached, and they’ve done very well so far this year, especially in their home games.”
The Bears took a break from their regular practices at the beginning of this week after getting rained out during their usual Wednesday practice. But the squad will return to the courts on Thursday after almost a week of no play to touch up on its basics, and it expects to be fully prepared as it heads into the rest of its season.
“Our challenges have been rising up for us this year,” Wright said. “It’s hard to say who will win because TCU is a tough squad, but we just need to stick to our process and not focus so much on the rankings, and I think we’ll be OK.”
Janice Chua covers men’s tennis. Contact her at [email protected].