The California men's tennis team opens the 2024-25 season in the Battle in the Bay Classic starting Thursday and ending Sunday, with the Golden Bears co-hosting the annual event with the California Tennis Club at the venerable club in San Francisco.
 
Cal's Carl Emil Overbeck, Alex Chang, Derrick Chen, Timofey Stepanov and Theo Dean – a graduate transfer from Yale – will compete in the singles field of 32. The Golden Bears' pairs of Overbeck and Dean, Chang and Mikey Wright, and Chen and Stepanov will play in the 16-team doubles field. Overbeck, a senior, paired with former Cal teammate Yuta Kikuchi to win doubles titles at the Battle in the Bay Classic in 2021 and 2022.
 
Last Time In The Battle In The Bay Classic
Carl Emil Overbeck had won the previous two doubles titles at the Battle in the Bay Classic, but in 2023 the third time wasn't a charm for the Golden Bear, as Overbeck and Alex Chang fell in the doubles semifinals Sept. 23 at the California Tennis Club. The Bears came close to advancing but lost to Arizona's Herman Hoeyerral and Colton Smith, 8-7(1). Also on Sept. 23, Chang dropped a 2-6, 6-3, 10-8 match to Baylor's Luc Koenig in the consolation singles quarterfinals.
 
2023-24 Review
Cal completed the 2023-24 season with a 10-10 dual-match record, including a 3-3 record in the Bears' last season in the Pac-12 Conference. The Bears last competed against Arizona State on April 25 in the Pac-12 Championship in Ojai. The 58th-ranked Bears got a singles win from Lucas Magnaudet against the Sun Devils at Libbey Park, but the fifth-seeded Golden Bears lost to the fourth-seeded Sun Devils 4-1 and exited the conference tournament.
 
Highlights of the dual-match season included three separate three-match unbeaten streaks. The first streak included two wins (5-0 and 5-2) over UC Davis on Feb. 3 and then a 4-0 victory over Pepperdine. The second streak featured wins over Oregon (4-1), Washington (4-1) and San Francisco (4-0), with now former Bear Lucas Magnaudet clinching each victory. The final streak included wins versus Utah (4-0), UC Santa Barbara (4-3) and Saint Mary's (7-0). Also during the spring, Stepanov and Jonathan Irwanto won in the main draw semifinals of the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships, but the final was rained out.
 
In the fall, Chang advanced to the singles quarterfinals in the ITA Northwest Super Regional Championships in October, and in November, to cap the first half of the year, Overbeck captured the singles title in the Jack Kramer Invitational.
 
Poll Position
In the first ITA individual polls of the 2024-25 season, the Bears earned three singles rankings – No. 44 Theo Dean, No. 56 Carl Emil Overbeck and No. 123 Alex Chang – along with two doubles rankings – No. 13 Alex Chang and Mikey Wright and No. 25 Dean and Overbeck.
 
Next Time
The Bears next compete in the Sherwood Collegiate Cup from Sept 20-22 at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.
 
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