The Oregon men’s tennis team sent just three players to their final tournament of the fall season, the Kramer Classic in Los Angeles, California. All three suffered early losses and were eliminated before the weekend began.
“We just didn’t play very well, that’s the bottom line,” Oregon head coach Nils Schyllander said. “I’m a little surprised because we practiced great leading up to it.”
Daan Maasland, Simon Stevens and Alberto Reyes all played matches for Oregon on Thursday, the opening day of the tournament.
Reyes faced Sebastian Hawkens of Washington in the opening round and won the first set of a tiebreaker, but was defeated after dropping the following two sets 6-2 and 6-1.
Stevens suffered a similar fate against Ronald Slobodchikov of TCU. After winning the first set, he dropped the following two sets 7-5 and 6-4. The next day, he faced UCLA’s Joseph DiGiulio in the consolation bracket and lost in straight sets after pushing the second set to a tiebreaker.
Maasland entered the tournament as the No. 2 seed and received a first-round bye. In the round of 32 on Thursday, he fell to UCLA’s Ryo Tachioka 6-4, 6-0, and was moved to the consolation bracket. There, he faced Yates Johnson of SMU next day and captured the first set of their match, but was then forced to withdraw due to injury allowing Johnson to advance to the next round.
Maasland and Stevens also competed on the doubles side of the tournament and were awarded a first-round bye because they were the No.2 seed in the bracket They faced SMU duo Hunter Johnson and Yates Johnson but were eliminated after an 8-3 loss.
Hunter Johnson and Yates Johnson went on to win the doubles bracket after a an 8-5 win over Jake DeVine and Thibault Forget of USC in the championship match.
The Kramer Classic was the only tournament of the four that Oregon competed in during the fall in which they failed to advance a player or duo past the first round of competition.
“We played well the whole fall,” Schyllander said. “But we didn’t play to the level we had practiced in the week leading up to the tournament.”
“It’s just part of the process.”
Follow Jarrid Denney on Twitter @jdenney50