Saturday Recap: Cal Wins The Big Slam; Penn State Still Unbeaten, Mississippi State Rides the Wave

The 52-minute doubles point was extremely tight with breaks hard to come by at both #1 and #3. Cal’s #2 team of Andre Goransson and Billy Griffith jumped out to a 5-2 lead but Stanford’s Nolan Paige and David Wilczynski would come back and take five straight to win it 7-5.

The match at #1 stayed on serve until Stanford’s Maciek Romanowicz double faulted on match point at 30-40 to give Cal’s Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat the 7-5 win.

The doubles point would be decided in a tiebreak at #3 and it looked good for Cal’s Mads Engsted and J.T. Nishimura after they went ahead 6-4. Stanford’s Yale Goldberg and Sameer Kumar fought back to even it at 6-6 before Nishimura hit a service winner to make it 7-6. Goldberg hit a service winner to make it 7-7 and then Kumar put a volley away at the net to make it 8-7 Stanford. Engsted won both points on his serve to make it 9-8 Cal with the 8-8 point being a volley fest that ended with Kumar going long on a forehand. Cal would close it out on the next point with the video clip from Russ showing you how it happened.

Stanford came out strong in singles at the top of the lineup but while Tom Fawcett and David Wilczynski would claim first sets at #1 and #2, Nolan Paige would falter at #3. Paige led Cal’s Billy Griffith 5-2 in the first set but Griffith would take five straight to take the set 7-5.

Cal ended up taking four first sets after sweeping the bottom three courts with Filip Bergevi, Oskar Wikberg, and Mads Engsted (subbed for Nishimura) taking them at #4, #5, and #6.

Filip Bergevi put Cal’s second point on the board with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Sameer Kumar at #4. Bergevi broke Kumar’s 4-4 service game and then held at love to take the opening set 6-4. Bergevi broke Kumar to start the second set and then broke him again to go up 3-0. It’d be all holds the rest of the way with Bergevi holding on the deciding point to close it out 6-4, 6-2 in a 1 hour and 6 minutes.

Billy Griffith would make it 3-0 Bears after he finished off Nolan Paige 7-5, 6-4 at #3 singles. As I mentioned above Griffith came back from 5-2 down to take the opening set 7-5, then in the second set it stayed on serve for a while. Griffith finally broke Paige’s 4-4 service game and then held serve to win it in 1 hour and 12 minutes.

Stanford’s David Wilczynski would put the Cardinal board after he knocked off Florian Lakat 6-4, 6-4 at #2. Wilczynski jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the opening set before Lakat held, broke, and held to go up 3-2. Wilczynski would break again a few games later and then serve out the set to take it 6-4. Wilczynski went up an early break in the second but Lakat broke back to make it 2-2. Wilczynski broke back on the deciding point to go up 3-2 and then held for 4-2. Each would hold two more times with Wilczynski serving it out to take it 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour and 17 minutes – match point below from Russ:

So Cal was still leading 3-1 but Stanford was starting to make its move. Tom Fawcett was getting ready to serve for the match at #1, Maciek Romanowicz had just got a split at #5, and Michael Genender was up a break in the second in an attempt to get a split at #6.

Fawcett would end up getting broke and would drop the second set in a tiebreak to Andre Goransson but Romanowicz wasn’t letting go of his lead over Oskar Wikberg at #5. Wikberg took the opening set 6-3 and went up 2-0 in the second before Romanowicz put it all together and took 12 of the next 14 games to close out Wikberg 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 in 2 hours and 3 minutes (match point below).

Tom Fawcett would tie it up at 3-3 but it’d take a while to finish off Andre Goransson at #1. Fawcett won the first set going away and then he went breaks on three separate occasions in the second set with the third break putting him up 5-4. Goransson would break from 30-40, when a Fawcett forehand hit the net cord and kicked wide, to make it 5-5. Both guys held to send it to a tiebreak and then Fawcett went up 3-1 but it’d be 3-3 at the changeover after a Fawcett double fault. Fawcett hit a volley winner for 4-3 and then went up 5-3 after Goransson double faulted. Goransson came back with an ace for 4-5 and then he tried to jump Fawcett’s second serve but his return went into the net to make it 4-6. Fawcett had two match points but he’d lose the next three points on forehand errors. His best chance to close out the set came when he served up 6-4 because he hit a great first serve but Goransson hit an equally great return which forced the Fawcett error. Goransson took the tiebreak 8-6 when Fawcett was unable to pick up this low volley (clip below).

.@College10s2day three straight unforced FH’s (2 on match point) plus this volley into net gives cal a split pic.twitter.com/2rOpFKgETF

rustam tahir (@rustamtahir) February 20, 2016

The third set stayed on serve until Goransson double faulted at 30-40 to put Fawcett up 4-2. Goransson broke back at love only to get broke from 30-40 to go down 5-3. Fawcett went up 30-0 on his serve but dropped the next four points to get broke to make it 5-4. The match would finish with a fifth consecutive break as Fawcett broke from 30-40 to take it 6-1, 6-7(6), 6-4 in 2 hours and 27 minutes.

.@College10s2day fawcett finally pulls it out breaking goransson for the third time in row. Dual tied 3-3. pic.twitter.com/19WMyvRZeR

rustam tahir (@rustamtahir) February 21, 2016

The final match on court was at #6 between Stanford freshman Michael Genender and Cal senior Mads Engsted. Genender went up the early break in the opening set and served for the set up 5-4 but Engsted broke back and ended up taking it in a tiebreak 7-6(1). Clip below is set point for Engsted courtesy of Russ.

Seconds after bergevi takes match v kumar, engstad takes TB v genender, whose FH was deadly in beginning goes awol pic.twitter.com/AbxnAIJEiu

rustam tahir (@rustamtahir) February 20, 2016

Genender went up 5-2 in the second and held serve on the deciding point to take it 6-3 as he lets out a huge roar. (Russ with the clip)

.@College10s2day going three on court six. If I had to pick a winner, I think Stanford will take dual. pic.twitter.com/uOyTQfuFTR

rustam tahir (@rustamtahir) February 21, 2016

Genender went up 2-0 in the third and was up 30-40 on Engsted’s serve but Engsted managed to hold for 1-2. Engsted broke from 15-40 to even it at 2-2 then he held at love to go up 3-2. Engsted broke again, this time from 30-40, to go up 4-2 and then he held for 5-2. Genender seemed like he was done but he kept fighting. He held for 3-5 then he broke from 30-40 to make it 4-5 when Engsted pushed a forehand well wide. Genender went down 15-40 on his 4-5 service game but he forced an Engsted error and then hit a service winner to bring up the deciding point. Engsted made an odd choice on the deciding point because he chose to receive into the ad-court and with Genender being left handed that meant he’d have to deal with that cutting lefty serve. Genender hit a great serve into Engsted’s body for a service winner to hold for 5-5.

.@College10s2day genender saves three match points to even score. Both players are tight as heck. pic.twitter.com/s1iF8TnCs9

rustam tahir (@rustamtahir) February 21, 2016

It seemed like the tide had turned and the match was there for Genender’s taking but Engsted regrouped and held at love to go up 6-5. Genender would be serving at 5-6, 30-30 when he hit a double fault to make it 30-40. What was so bad about the double was that Genender spent a few seconds staring at the ball from the previous serve which had kicked back from the wall and rolled over to the sideline. Instead of going over and moving the ball out of the way he hit his second serve and missed badly. Engsted would clinch the Cal win on the next point when Genender put a forehand into the net and that was it – 7-6(1), 3-6, 7-5 in 2 hours and 52 minutes.

.@College10s2day engstad wins match for cal, outlasting genender 7-5. Very tight match from both. pic.twitter.com/0udXbDIpVB

rustam tahir (@rustamtahir) February 21, 2016

Thanks again to Russ Tahir for all the great video clips which really helped tell the story

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Ken Thomas of Radio Tennis was broadcasting from the Mississippi State versus Tulane match and he sure picked a good one. Tulane took the doubles point and got a quick win from Dominik Koepfer at #1 to go up 2-0 but Mississippi State tied it up at 2-2 with a straight set win from Niclas Braun at #4 and a three-set win from Nuno Borges at #2. The other three matches also went three-sets with Tulane’s Chi-Shan Jao winning at #5 to put Tulane up 3-2 but Mississippi State took the last two with Strahinja Rakic winning 6-1 in the 3rd and Rishab Agarwal winning the deciding 6-3 in the 3rd.

Below are two clips of Agarwal’s match point via MSU’s Twitter