BERKELEY – Jacob Brumm and Yuta Kikuchi – the Pac-12 Freshman/Newcomer of the Year – will continue the Cal men's tennis team's postseason journey when the 28th-ranked duo competes in the NCAA Doubles Championship starting on Tuesday at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida. The duo plays Bryant's 76th-ranked Wilson Dong and Matt Kuhar not before 7:30 p.m. ET in one of several matches to be highlighted on the Tennis Channel.
 
Live scores and live streams - for matches not shown on the Tennis Channel - will be available at NCAAs. The Tennis Channel will broadcast NCAA doubles (and singles) action starting at 4 p.m. ET each day from May 21-25.
 
Please click here for the NCAA doubles draw, here for more information about the NCAA Championships and here for ticket info, schedules and more at the USTA National Campus.
 
Brumm, a product of Rancho Santa Fe, California, and Kikuchi, from Yahaba, Japan, are looking to capture Cal's 10th NCAA doubles title, with Matt Lucena and Bent-Ove Pedersen winning Cal's ninth crown in 1991. In the recent NCAA team tournament, the two Bears, who have a 16-16 record, beat Barney Thorold and Bayo Phillips, 6-3, in the round of 64 win over Drake, though the pair lost in the rounds of 32 and 16, respectively, to Illinois and Texas teams.
 
In the 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 the Bulldogs

• Dong and Kuhar have a 7-3 record
• But the two haven't played doubles together since March 16, when they lost their third straight match
• The Bryant pair will be the first in the history of the program and of the Northeast Conference to play in one of the NCAA individual tournaments
• In their first match of the season, Kuhar and Dong defeated Dartmouth's David Horneffer and Charlie Broom, 6-4; the Dartmouth duo ranked is currently ranked 20th

Kikuchi Named Pac-12 Freshman/Newcomer of the Year
Yuta Kikuchi became the third Golden Bear to be named the Pac-12 Freshman/Newcomer of the Year when the conference office announced its All-Pac-12 teams on May 7. Kikuchi also earned a spot on the All-Pac-12 Second Team.
 
Cal's Balazs Veress also claimed the award in 2001 and Campbell Johnson picked up the honor in 2013.
 
Kikuchi, who hails from Yahaba, Japan, has been Cal's No. 1 singles player and with Jacob Brumm has formed the team's top doubles pair most of the season. Kikuchi has a 20-14 singles record, which includes wins over Tennessee's Adam Walton, now ranked 51st, 6-4, 7-6(6), and Arizona State's 99th-ranked Nathan Ponwith, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. He also clinched Cal wins over Pacific, with a 6-4, 6-3, result over Ross Watson, and over ASU, with that victory over Ponwith.
 
His overall doubles record is 18-20, which includes his 16-16 mark with Brumm.

Last Time: Cal Bows Out In Austin
Cal's deep run into the postseason ended with a 4-0 loss at second-seeded Texas on May 11 in the NCAA super regional in Austin, Texas. The second-ranked Longhorns clinched the victory over the 24th-ranked Golden Bears when the 12th-ranked Yuya Ito beat Cal sophomore Jack Molloy, 6-3, 6-3. Cal wound up with a 16-13 overall record. Texas, meanwhile, improved to 26-3 and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals in Orlando.
 
One week earlier in Urbana, Illinois, Cal defeated Drake in the round of 64 opener and then upset host and Illinois in the second round to advance to the super regional. Against the Bulldogs on May 3, Cal junior Bjorn Hoffmann clinched the victory with a 7-6(4), 6-1 win over Ben Clark at court-six singles. The next day, Cal won for the fifth time in six matches when it upset 15th-seeded and 15th-ranked Illinois, 4-1, in the round of 32. Ben Draper clinched the victory over the Illini when he defeated Siphosothando Montsi, 6-4, 7-5, at court-four singles to punch Cal's ticket to Austin.
 
The loss to the Longhorns ended the team portion of the season for the Bears, who parlayed late-season success – including an upset of No. 13 UCLA to reach the Pac-12 Championship final – into a trip to the super regional.
 
Bears Earn Pac-12 Academic Honors
Five California men's tennis players earned Pac-12 All-Academic honors, the conference announced Tuesday, with sophomore Can Kaya leading the way with a spot on the first team. Jack Molloy claimed a berth on the second team, and Jacob Brumm, Ben Draper and Bjorn Hoffmann all garnered honorable mention. These are the first conference academic honors for all five Bears. Kaya, an economics major, also collected the Golden Bear Award in early May for posting the highest GPA on the team.
 
Last Year: Griffith, Nishimura Concluded Cal Career At NCAAs
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.