Bears Seek Regional Success At Stanford

Friday, October 25

TBA

All Day

California

ITA Regionals

10/23/2019 1:28 PM | Men's Tennis

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By: Cal Athletics

BERKELEY – The California men's tennis team vies for singles and doubles title – and seeks qualification in the upcoming national championships – when it starts the ITA Northwest Regional Championships on Friday at Stanford's Taube Family Tennis Center. The annual event concludes on Tuesday, Oct. 29.

In main draw singles, Cal sophomore Yuta Kikuchi is the top seed and earns a bye in the opening round of 128, with junior Paul Barretto a No. 5 seed, while junior Jacob Brumm, sophomore Kent Hunter and senior Bjorn Hoffmann are all No. 9 seeds. In main draw doubles, the pair of Paul Barretto and junior Can Kaya is the fourth seed, Hoffmann and junior Ben Draper are a nine seed, Kikuchi and Mert Zincirli are a five seed, and the team of Brumm and Hunter is also a No. 5 seed. Barretto and Kaya have a bye in the opening round of 64. Both draws are available here.

The regional's main draw singles finalists and doubles champions will automatically qualify for the 2019 Oracle ITA National Fall Championships, slated for Nov. 6-10 in Newport Beach, California.

Fans can watch regional action via Stanford's live stream available here and can also find score updates on Twitter @CalMensTennis.

Last Year At Fall Nationals
The first half of the 2018-19 season ended on a high note for the Golden Bears when Yuta Kikuchi and Jacob Brumm reached the doubles semifinals of the Oracle ITA National Fall Championships.

The Bears lost to Texas Tech's 42nd-ranked Parker Wynn and Bjorn Thomson, 6-3, 6-4, just one step away from the final in Surprise, Arizona. But the result – coming in the two Bears' second tournament as a doubles team – foreshadowed the success the pair would have the rest of the year.

Last Time: Bears Win 2 UCSB Titles
The Bears wrapped up a successful trip to the 2019 UCSB Classic on Oct. 13, with Golden Bear senior Dominic Barretto winning the A singles title and teammates Thomas Wright and Mert Zincirli capturing a doubles title as the annual tournament came to a close.

Barretto beat Stanford's Neel Rajeesh, 1-6, 7-5, 6-2, to give Cal its fourth UCSB Classic top-flight singles champion over the past seven years – including Nikhil Jayashankar in 2013, Mads Engsted in 2014 and Billy Griffith in 2015.

In the B Doubles final, Zincirli and Wright defeated Fresno State's Daniel Baturyn and Johannes Seeman, 8-5, giving Cal its second B Doubles crown in the last six years, including the title that Engsted and Wyatt Houghton won in 2014.

Poll Position
Bears claimed several spots in the Oracle ITA preseason rankings released on Sept. 24. In singles, Kikuchi is ranked 75th, Molloy is 83rd and Paul Barretto is ranked 121st. In doubles, Kikuchi and Jacob Brumm – Cal's top duo from last season – is 16th in the preseason poll, while the pair of Kaya and Paul Barretto is ranked 58th.

The next Oracle ITA singles and doubles polls are slated for a Nov. 13 release.