The Stanford women’s and men’s tennis teams each grabbed home wins this past weekend in dual match play at Taube Family Tennis Stadium. The No. 4 Stanford women’s tennis team crushed the No. 7 Vanderbilt Commodores 6-1 on Saturday afternoon in a rematch of the 2018 NCAA title game, and the No. 6 Stanford men’s tennis team came back from behind to take down the No. 40 California Golden Bears 4-2 after dropping the day’s first doubles match.
Last April, then-No. 15 Stanford upset then-No. 1 Vanderbilt in the national championship match 4-3 after getting wiped out by the Commodores 0-7 earlier in the season. The title was the team’s second in three years, and pushed forward a dominant 25-game win streak that lasted from a 3-4 loss to Florida on February 24, 2018 to a heartbreaking 3-4 defeat at the hands of the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs on February 11, 2019.
Stanford’s top doubles duo of seniors Caroline Lampl and Kimberley Yee were first off the courts after taking down No. 36 Contreras/Smith (6-2); Lampl/Yee sit at No. 12 in the nation in women’s doubles, and improved their season record to 16-4.
The Cardinal then won four straight singles matches before the Commodores won their first; junior No. 19 Emily Arbuthnott provided the clincher with a three-set victory over No. 37 Amanda Meyer (6-1, 2-6, 6-1).
Stanford’s sole loss on the day came at the hands of No. 3 Fernanda Contreras, who took down Stanford sophomore No. 16 Michaela Gordon (7-6[6], 0-6, 1-0[12]). Gordon has run the gamut of top-ranked players this season; she was defeated by Georgia’s No. 1 Katarina Jokic (4-6, 6-1, 6-3) last weekend and North Carolina’s No. 5 Alexa Graham (0-6, 6-3, 3-6) back in October. Gordon, who hung tough in each of these matches, is currently 5-0 in conference play this season.
The men’s team also showed out in singles, winning four out of its five singles matches on Sunday afternoon. After Berkeley grabbed the 1-0 lead early as No. 13 Brumm/Kikuchi defeated Kumar/Sah (6-3), the Cardinal stormed back with three straight victories to grab the 3-1 advantage. Making up for his earlier loss in doubles, senior captain Sameer Kumar provided the clincher in singles with a takedown of freshman Yuta Kikuchi (6-2, 6-4).
The men’s team will head to La Jolla this Thursday for the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships. The women’s team will remain on campus, taking on the 5-2 Texas Longhorns next Saturday at noon.
Contact Shan Reddy at rsreddy ‘at’ stanford.edu.