The No. 8 Stanford men’s tennis team returned to action during the week of spring break, playing in three matches after an 18-day hiatus from competition for Dead Week and finals. The long layoff proved costly in Stanford’s first match back against No. 7 Pepperdine in Los Angeles.
The match did not go well for the Cardinal, which suffered one of its worst defeats in recent memory, 6-1.
“They killed us,” head coach John Whitlinger said. “The break was tough on the guys, and I thought we were ready. Pepperdine, though, was just a little bit more ready than we were.”
Pepperdine got off to a strong start against Stanford on its home court and never looked back, winning the doubles points and the first five singles points and securing the match victory before Stanford was even on the board.
The road trip continued to Tucson, Ariz., where a feisty Arizona team was waiting for the Cardinal. This match represented an important first for Stanford this season: its first Pac-12 conference match.
“Tucson’s not an easy place to play,” Whitlinger said. “There’s a little bit of altitude, there’s a lot of wind, the ball was flying all over the place and it was 90 degrees.”
The team nonetheless responded well to the challenges of the Arizona match, getting off to a strong start by sweeping the doubles point and refusing to let the Wildcats get back into the match, ultimately winning 5-2 behind a 6-2, 6-1 from senior Bradley Klahn, a 6-4, 6-4 win from senior Ryan Thacher and a 7-5, 6-0 win from freshman John Morrissey.
If Whitlinger and the Cardinal thought the conditions in Arizona had been challenging, they were in for a grueling test in the final match of the road trip against Utah.
“When we got in it was like 80 degrees, yet we knew that the next day, when we would be playing the match, it was going to rain or snow, which it did, with the snow forcing us to move the match indoors at an elevation of 5,000 feet,” Whitlinger said.
Again, the Cardinal did not seem to be fazed by the change in conditions, winning a tightly contested, back-and-forth match against the Utes 4-3. Stanford dominated the doubles portion of the match, winning all three contests to take a 1-0 lead and got off to a strong start in singles play behind victories from Klahn at the No. 1 position and Morrissey at the No. 4 spot. After taking a 3-0 lead, however, the Cardinal struggled to record the pivotal fourth point, losing two matches before junior Denis Lin managed to close out his opponent on the fifth court and clinch victory for Stanford.
The victories against Arizona and Utah were big ones for Stanford, representing not only bounce-back wins after the tough loss against Pepperdine, but also two big Pac-12 conference victories to kick off the conference portion of the Cardinal’s schedule.
“I’m really pleased and proud of the way we bounced back from Pepperdine and won two tough matches in really difficult places to play,” Whitlinger said.
Stanford returns home for two important Pac-12 matches this weekend at the Taube Family Tennis Center, playing Friday against Oregon and Saturday against Washington.