It was a stress-free and pleasant final home match for the No. 12 Stanford men’s tennis team on Wednesday afternoon under a brilliantly blue Palo Alto sky. The Cardinal took out some of its built-up frustration following last weekend’s brutal pair of losses against UCLA and USC by thoroughly dominating unranked Pacific 7-0.
Stanford did not lose a set the entire match and outscored the opposing team 96 games to 30.
“It was really nice to come out here and have a focused match where everybody did what they needed to do,” said junior Matt Kandath. “That’s something we’ve been lacking in our recent tough matches so it was good to play a team where everybody feels good and we can get a solid win.”
The tone was set during the three doubles matches where, perhaps to liven up his squad, head coach John Whitlinger slightly shuffled his lineup. Instead of the usual pairings of seniors Ryan Thacher and Bradley Klahn at the No. 1 spot, juniors Kandath and Denis Lin at the No. 2 and freshmen John Morrissey and Robert Stineman at the No. 3 position, Whitlinger had Thacher and Lin play No. 1, Klahn and Morrissey No. 2 and Kandath and Stineman No. 3. All three new pairings played well and each had easy wins, securing the first point for the Cardinal.
In singles play, Stanford hasn’t looked better all season, a promising sign with the playoffs looming on the horizon. Lin led the way with Stanford’s second point, double-bageling his opponent (6-0, 6-0) out of, for him, the uncharted No. 6 position — for most of the season Lin has played No. 3 or No. 4 singles. Next were easy wins by Klahn and Kandath — 6-2, 6-1 and 6-0, 6-2, respectively — followed by Morrissey’s team-leading 16th dual-match win out of the No. 4 position. Sophomore Daniel Ho, playing No. 5, battled his opponent to a 6-2, 6-4 victory before Thacher ended the match by closing out his foe 6-4, 6-3, giving Stanford the shutout.
When asked about the reshuffled lineup, Kandath said: “We’re pretty used to all the lineup shifting this season — what with all the injuries we’ve had. It’s really nice that we have the depth where people can fill in, play where they need to play and come out and still win.”
Team-wide depth is an advantage that Whitlinger will likely look to exploit when the hectic collegiate tennis playoffs kick off next week.
Before the playoffs begin, however, Stanford has one more regular season match, fittingly against rival Cal. The Cardinal has beaten the Golden Bears the last four times they have played, a streak the team will certainly be looking to build on this Friday in Berkeley.
“We like where we’re at right now,” Kandath said. “The L.A. matches were real tough last weekend; they beat us up pretty good. We felt that and since then we’ve made some changes, we had a long team meeting and figured out what we need to do. We’re going to keep the same energy from today against Cal and then take that with us down to Ojai for the Pac-12 tournament and try to finally knock off those L.A. schools.”
This might have been the final home match of the season for the Cardinal, but the excitement is just building as the postseason is right around the corner.
Stanford and Cal will square off Friday at 3 p.m. in Berkeley.