MALIBU – With a victory Sunday at the ITA West Sectional Championships, the California men's tennis team produced another qualifier for the singles postseason and now leads the nation with four student-athletes heading to the NCAA Singles Championship. Cal also qualified its second duo for the NCAA Doubles Championship on Sunday, with the Golden Bears tied for the most doubles entrants in the field.
 
Both NCAA individual championships are slated to take place Nov. 19-24 at Baylor in Waco, Texas.
 
In a singles playoff match at Pepperdine's Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center, Cal sophomore Timofey Stepanov defeated UCLA's 104th-ranked Aadarsh Tripathi 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 to book his first trip to the postseason. He'll join Alex Chang, Theo Dean and Carl Emil Overbeck in the singles field in Waco.
 
Thirteenth-ranked Cal seniors Chang and Mikey Wright bested Nevada's Lucas Hammond and Youssef Kadiri 6-1, 6-1 in the doubles third-place match to also claim their first postseason berth. Dean and Overbeck had already advanced to the postseason via their Saturday semifinal win at sectionals.
 
Overbeck and Dean were slated to play in the doubles final Sunday in Malibu, but, with both finalist pairs already qualified for NCAAs, the match was not played. Likewise, the singles semifinals, which would have included Chang and Dean, were not played.
 
"Any coach would be proud of the results we've had so far, but if you were at Pepperdine this weekend and saw the boys supporting each other, you would've seen that this is the finest, most loving group of guys who have each other's backs," said Kris Kwinta, Cal's Peter Wright Director of Men's Tennis. "We've created a cool, tight group of guys who elevate their games for one another. That resonates well with me. That's the biggest accomplishment of the coaching staff – to produce a team that plays so hard for each other."
 
ITA West Sectional Championships – Cal Results
Nov. 10, 2024, in Malibu, Calif.
Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center
 
Doubles Third-Place Match
No. 13 Alex Chang/Mikey Wright (Cal) def. Lucas Hammond/Youssef Kadiri (Nevada), 6-1, 6-1
 
Singles Playoff Match
Timofey Stepanov (Cal) def. No. 104 Aadarsh Tripathi (UCLA), 5-7, 6-3, 6-4
 
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