BERKELEY – The postseason plans are set for the California men's tennis team, with the 24th-ranked Golden Bears (14-12) opening the NCAA Championship against Drake (19-13) in the round of 64 on Friday and with their top pair of Jacob Brumm and Yuta Kikuchi heading to Orlando, Florida, in late May for the NCAA Doubles Championship. Kikuchi, Brumm and the Bears face the Bulldogs at 1 p.m. CT on Friday at the Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana, Illinois, with the University of Illinois hosting the four-team regional.
 
The Illinis (18-8), ranked and seeded 15th, will play Western Michigan (18-8) at 4 p.m. CT on Friday, with the two first-round victors playing each other on Saturday at 3 p.m. CT in Urbana in the second round/round of 32. Saturday's winner advances to one of eight NCAA super regionals at a site TBA on May 10 or 11, with a trip to Orlando for the quarterfinals and beyond on the line.
 
Fans can follow the Cal-Drake match via Illinois' live stream and live scores by clicking here and can keep track of all the Bears' matches on Twitter @CalMensTennis. Tickets cost $5.00 for adults and $3.00 for students in Urbana. For more information about tickets, where to park, etc., please visit the regional's tournament central page here. Please click here for the tournament bracket and here for more information about the NCAA Championship.
 
The Bears have a 1-0 record in the all-time series with Drake, the Summit League champion that brings a 19-13 record into the first-round match. Cal has a 2-4 record against Illinois – including a 4-0 loss at Illinois last season – and has a 1-0 record against Western Michigan, with the Bears beating the Mustangs this season, 4-0, on Jan. 27.
 
Cal heads into NCAAs with some momentum having won three of its last four matches, including a 4-0 blanking of host Oregon to end the regular season, a 4-1 Pac-12 quarterfinal win over Arizona State and a 4-1 upset of No. 13 (and top-seeded) UCLA in the Pac-12 semifinals. USC beat Cal, 4-0, in the conference final.
 
The Bears have now reached the NCAA team tournament 20 consecutive times under Wright, who is in his 26th season in charge of the Bears. This year's Cal team features strong doubles teams including the nationally ranked duo of Brumm and Kikuchi (15-14 record) and the sophomore pair of Can Kaya and Paul Barretto (24-5), which spent much of the season in the Oracle ITA Rankings. Kikuchi also posted a 19-14 singles record after playing much of the season at court-one singles. Sophomore Ben Draper, who has a 17-9 singles record, was on a 13-match winning streak until suffering a loss in Cal's Pac-12 semifinal win over UCLA on April 26.
 
Cal is one of seven Pac-12 Conference teams to reach the NCAA Championship, including eighth-seeded USC, 11th-seeded UCLA, 12th-seeded Stanford, Arizona, Utah and Arizona State.
 
Poll Position
Cal is ranked No. 24 in this week's Oracle ITA and Tennis Channel/USTA Top 25 polls, while the pair of Brumm and Kikuchi (15-14) sits at No. 28 in this week's Oracle ITA doubles rankings.
 
Duo Earns At-Large Selection
Kikuchi and Brumm claimed an at-large berth to the 32-team NCAA Doubles Championship field that was announced on April 30. They are looking to capture Cal's 10th NCAA doubles title; Matt Lucena and Bent-Ove Pedersen won the Bears' ninth national crown in 1991.
 
In the recent Pac-12 Championship, Brumm and Kikuchi upset Arizona State's 12th-ranked Nathan Ponwith and Dominik Kellovsky, 6-0, in Cal's eventual 4-1 quarterfinal win over the Sun Devils. Cal's court-one doubles team made plenty of news in the fall, when the two upset the top-ranked team of Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic from Mississippi State, 6-3, 4-6, 1-0(5), in the opening round of 32 in the Saint Francis Health System ITA Men's All-American Championships. The Bears then upset Virginia Tech's 16th-ranked Carlo Donato and Mitch Harper, 7-6(1), 6-3, in the round of 16 before falling in the quarterfinals.
 
Scouting Drake

• The Bulldogs were 5-1 in the Summit League this year
• Drake beat Denver, 4-3, to win the conference's tournament final and automatic berth in the NCAA tournament
• The Bulldogs have reached the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive season
• Davidson Kozlowski is in his seventh season as Drake's head coach

Scouting Illinois

• The Illini earned an NCAA at-large bid after losing to Ohio State, 4-1, in the Big Ten tournament final; Illinois finished 10-1 in the Big Ten
• Aleksandar Kovacevic is ranked 10th and Alex Brown is ranked 46th in singles
• The duo of Brown and Caleb Chakravarthi is ranked 37th in doubles, while Brown and Kovacevic are ranked 47th
• Brad Dancer is in his 14th year as head coach at Illinois

 
Scouting Western Michigan

• Cal beat the Broncos, 4-0, in the consolation match of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend at Texas A&M, in the Bears' first dual-match win this season
• The Broncos posted a 7-0 record in the Mid-American Conference
• Western Michigan beat Northern Illinois, 4-3, in the MAC tournament final to qualify for NCAAs
• Dave Morin is in his 23rd season as head coach at Western Michigan

Last Year At NCAAs
Ranked 34th, Cal upset the 24th-ranked N.C. State Wolf Pack, 4-1, in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Championship in Austin, Texas. Cal dropped the doubles point to N.C. State but clawed its way back, and Paul Barretto eventually clinched the victory with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Robert Turzak at court-five singles. But the Bears fell to host Texas in the second round, 4-0.
 
Also in 2018, the Bears sent Billy Griffith to the NCAA Singles Championship and the team of Griffith and J.T. Nishimura to the NCAA doubles tournament in Winston-Salem, N.C. The 54th-ranked Griffith upset Kentucky's eighth-ranked Ryotaro Matsumura, 6-4, 6-3, in the opening round of 64, before falling to Arkansas' 18th-ranked Jose Salazar, 6-1, 7-5, in the round of 32. Nishimura and Griffith lost in the doubles first round to North Carolina's second-ranked William Blumberg and Robert Kelly, 6-4, 6-4.