Portland lost to the No. 13-ranked San Diego Toreros 4-0 in a West Coast Conference men’s tennis match at the Louisiana-Pacific Tennis Center on March 27.
The result marks a challenging outing for the Pilots, who were missing senior Nikola Keremedchiev, a regular presence at the top of their singles and doubles lineup. Despite his absence, Portland pushed several matches to three sets against one of their highest-ranked opponents this season.
San Diego secured the doubles point with wins at both the No. 1 and No. 2 positions, while Portland’s Cade Fernando and Tannor Binder were tied in their unfinished match at No. 3 when play was abandoned. In singles competition, Oliver Tarvet gave San Diego an early lead by defeating Fernando at No. 1 singles, followed by Lambert Ruland’s comeback win over Lucas Kimelman at No. 3.
The longest contest featured Portland’s Tom Garcia facing Manvydas Balciunas of San Diego in a battle lasting more than three hours before Balciunas clinched victory with a score of 6-7, 6-3, 7-5 at the second singles spot.
“I’m really proud of our effort today,” said Portland head coach Aaron Gross. “That’s the best team we will play all season and we battled them in several spots. Tom was awesome and actually served for the match and Stefan was up in the third when the match got called. We really put our focus on ourselves today, staying on our side of the court and playing the best we can without expectation from what the other side should or shouldn’t do. I think that mentality gave us the best possible effort.”
Looking ahead, Portland will continue conference play against another ranked opponent as they host Santa Clara on Sunday.
