The Stanford men’s tennis team suffered a tough defeat on Tuesday afternoon at the hands of a resilient Fresno State squad. In a very close, back-and-forth match, the Bulldogs were able to rebound from losing the doubles point and clinch the match four points to three during a particularly intense round of singles play.
The teams were locked in a tight match from the very beginning of the day. After more than three hours of play, only two points had been decided–the Cardinal with one after winning the doubles point and the Bulldogs with the other after a win on court five. The three top court matches all went to three sets–all of them could have gone either way–and sounds of fierce rallies and primal screams echoed off the stands of a sparsely populated Taube Family Tennis Stadium.
The Stanford squad was playing without two of its top singles players: senior Bradley Klahn, who remains sidelined from singles play with a back injury, and junior Dennis Lin, who was out of the lineup with an undisclosed ailment. Klahn did make his highly anticipated dual-match debut as a doubles player, teaming up with usual partner Ryan Thacher in their victory on the No. 1 doubles court. Klahn’s doubles return gives Cardinal fans some positive hope for his return to singles action, as the team has been somewhat listless in his absence.
The unavailability of Klahn and Lin in singles play resulted in the team’s two freshmen, John Morrissey and Robert Stineman, playing on the third and fourth singles courts, their highest assignments of the season. As has been their tendency all year, the rookies rose to the challenge, providing the Cardinal with their only two singles wins of the afternoon.
The match ultimately came down to the No. 1 singles court, where Thacher was doing battle with fellow senior Remi Boutillier. Boutillier and Thacher have seen a lot of each other over the years, and both are ranked in the top 40 of the collegiate singles rankings, with Thacher at No. 37 and Boutillier at No. 14. The match was a classic seesaw affair, with Boutillier taking the first set, Thacher the second and the third decided by a tiebreaker, which Boutillier managed to win, 7-5.
The Cardinal has had difficulty building momentum this season, with just two wins–last week’s victories over Hawaii and Brigham Young University–in its last five matches. Last Friday, following the victory over BYU, Thacher spoke of the need to “refocus and get back on the winning track,” a need that the Cardinal will have to address in its 11-day break from dual-match play.
In the interim, Stanford will travel to Charlottesville, Va., this weekend to compete in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.