Portland lost to the No. 40-ranked Santa Clara Broncos in a West Coast Conference men’s tennis match on March 29 at the Louisiana-Pacific Tennis Center, with a final score of 5-2.
The result is significant for Portland, which was missing senior No. 1 player Nikola Keremedchiev due to injury for the second consecutive match. Despite this setback, Portland managed to win the doubles point after securing victories against ranked opponents.
Stefan Skobelev and Lucas Kimelman won their doubles match against Luca Bluett and John Kim, who are ranked No. 50 nationally, with a score of 6-4. Tom Garcia and Eli Noel followed up by defeating Tiago Boschmans and Luca Lemaitre (ranked No. 57) at the second spot, winning 6-3. Cade Fernando and Tannor Binder were leading at No. 3 doubles when Portland clinched the point.
Santa Clara responded by taking three straight-set singles wins at positions two through four to take control of the overall scoreline. Cade Fernando secured a hard-fought victory over Alexander Watanabe Eriksson in singles play with scores of 3-6, 7-6 (3), and 7-6 (5). The Broncos then clinched the team win by capturing matches at singles positions five and six.
“Full credit to Santa Clara, they are a very good team and showed it today,” Portland head coach Aaron Gross said. “We played excellent doubles and I expected that momentum to carry over into singles, but they just buckled down and got right to work and didn’t let us build on it. Cade Fernando had the best win he’s ever had today and he earned every point of it with tenacity. He did a great job.” Gross also noted that Portland faced two strong teams over the weekend: “We played two excellent teams this weekend and I’d like to think that they got their money’s worth.”
Looking ahead, Portland will play against two more nationally ranked conference opponents next weekend on the road: No. 58 Loyola Marymount University on Saturday at 11 a.m., followed by No. 25 Pepperdine on Sunday at 10 a.m.
