The Stanford men’s tennis team swept Santa Clara late Tuesday night at the indoor Broadway Tennis Center in Burlingame after rain on Monday forced the match to be moved from Stanford.
With the 5-0 win over the Broncos, the Cardinal have yet to lose a tennis match on the season. Stanford crushed Saint Mary’s last week at home, going 7-0 in the dual match season opener. The Broncos put up much tougher fights, however, and nearly stole a win in doubles early on in the evening.
The doubles pair of sophomore Axel Geller and freshman Alexandre Rotsaert were on a roll last week against the Gaels, each going 6-1 and 6-0, respectively, in singles before ending the day with a solid 6-2 win in doubles together. After each grabbed wins in straight sets in singles, Geller and Rotsaert took on Santa Clara’s Andrew Gu and Jesus Tapiador Barajas in a doubles that went down to the wire. Geller and Rotsaert narrowly came out on top (7-6) in a tough-fought matchup against Gu and Barajas, each of whom received All-WCC honors last season.
Senior Sameer Kumar and sophomore Timothy Sah also picked up a win in doubles together (6-2), as did senior Michael Genender and junior Jack Barber (6-3) in Barber’s dual match debut in doubles.
After losing a nail biter of a first set (6-7[3]), Geller handedly took the next two sets to win the match over Barajas in singles (6-7[3], 6-2, 6-4). This first singles match was the fourth of the day and clinched the victory for the Cardinal.
The final two singles matches were abandoned — Kumar and Genender were scheduled to play — the teams called it a day with Stanford grabbing the 5-0 win.
Stanford moves to 2-0 on the season and a commanding 12-0 all time record against the Santa Clara Broncos.
Several Stanford players will head to the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks on Friday for the Sherwood Collegiate Cup. Last season, Kumar and Genender fell in the tournament finals of the doubles main draw (6-3). Kumar also made it to the singles finals, losing to Stanford’s Tom Fawcett in a protracted (7-6, 7-6) battle. This year, the senior will be looking to make a final push for a cup victory to cap off his Stanford career.
Contact Shan Reddy at rsreddy ‘at’ stanford.edu.