It was a tough weekend in Los Angeles for No. 37 Stanford men’s tennis (6-4). After having won five straight matches, the Cardinal lost back-to-back matches to No. 1 USC and No. 21 UCLA, in what were ultimately two expected but still disappointing setbacks.

Stanford started strong against USC, capturing the doubles point with a huge 6-3 victory from seniors John Morrissey and Robert Stineman over the nation’s No. 2 doubles pairing, Yannick Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz. Junior Nolan Paige and freshman David Wilczynski then pulled out a 7-5 victory against USC’s Nick Crystal and Jonny Wang to solidify the point.

It was a completely different story for the singles. USC swept Stanford, winning all six singles matches with relative swiftness. Only two matches went to three sets, with both junior Maciek Romanowicz and Nolan Paige losing in the third set, but every matchup was highly competitive.

The team looked to bounce back against UCLA but suffered a similarly difficult afternoon. UCLA quickly grabbed the doubles point with victories in the No. 1 and No. 2 slots.

While Stanford managed two wins out of the six when the singles matches rolled out, with Morrissey managing an impressive 6-3, 6-1 victory over No. 35 singles player Dennis Mkrtchian, the overall result was disappointing. Paige was the other Stanford player to leave with a victory with his 6-3, 6-7 (6), 1-0 (7) win over UCLA’s Austin Rapp.

Freshman Tom Fawcett believed that the team’s mindset was the problem going into the matches, saying that they played “too tentatively as a whole.”

“Berkeley was a good result, but our team is still not where it needs to be, so we are going to work on some mental things in the big moments and get back to training hard so we are ready for those teams next time around,” he said.

Stanford will have a chance to get back to winning ways next weekend in the Pacific Coast Doubles Event in La Jolla, California.

Contact Jack Seaton at jrseaton ‘at’ stanford.edu.