BERKELEY – The 11th-ranked/seeded California men's tennis team ended a remarkable season with an NCAA Championship Second-Round loss to No. 16 UCLA on Saturday at the Hellman Tennis Complex. The Golden Bears fell to the Bruins 4-2.
 
The Bears concluded 2024-25 with a 19-5 record. UCLA (18-8) will advance to the NCAA Super Regionals next week.
 
Cal won the doubles point after a close battle to take a 1-0 lead. First, the Bears' 35th-ranked Theo Dean and Carl Emil Overbeck bested Alexander Hoogmartens and Giacomo Ravelli 6-3 on court one. Cal's senior duo of Alex Chang and Derrick Chen lost 6-3 to Spencer Johnson and Aadarsh Tripathi on court two to leave court three to settle the doubles point. Playing in just their second match as a tandem – with the first match taking place in the NCAA first-round win over Boise State on Friday – senior Mikey Wright and sophomore Timofey Stepanov rebounded from a 4-2 deficit to defeat UCLA's Gianluca Ballotta and Emon van Loben Sels 6-4 and give the Bears the point.
 
In singles, Cal suffered two straight-set losses to fall behind 2-1. A back-and-forth affair on court three – where 60th-ranked Dean faced Kaylan Bigun – produced a narrow 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) loss for the Cal graduate student that left the Bears trailing 3-1.
 
On court one, 17th-ranked Overbeck had a battle of his own against 20th-ranked Rudy Quan. The senior lost the first set to the Bruin 7-5 and then trailed 5-3 in the second set. But the Dane – who was the fourth seed in the NCAA Singles Championship in the fall – rallied to win the second set 7-5 and then closed out the match in the third set to prevail 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 and make the overall score 3-2.
 
That left two three-setters remaining, including on court two, where 76th-ranked Chang played 110th-ranked van Loben Sels, and on court four, where Stepanov took on Hoogmartens. Cal needed to take both matches while UCLA needed one to win the match. Chang fought to a 5-5 tie in his third set, but the court-four match ended in a 7-6(7), 1-6, 6-3 loss for Stepanov to close out Cal's year.
 
The loss gave Cal a split in the season series with UCLA, which lost to the Bears 4-2 in Los Angeles during the regular season.
 
"We lost to a good opponent," said Kris Kwinta, Cal's Peter Wright Director of Men's Tennis. "But I thought going into it we were a better team, and we beat them last time. We had an edge. We won the doubles point. But in singles I thought on too many courts we let them hang around. We couldn't close the lid on them. We had opportunities to put them away on a couple courts early, on two and three, and we had set points on four. Against opponents like that you've got to close the door on them. We let them linger a little bit. Carlo turned it around and came back from 3-5 down in the second, so that was cool for him to do in his last collegiate match. But overall I thought we were too hesitant and didn't throw enough punches early to keep them down after the doubles point.
 
"But obviously they're a good team. Congratulations to them. Unfortunately the season comes to an end for us. It's a great group of guys that I love. I wish we could battle again, but it wasn't meant to be. Such is sports, unfortunately. Great season, with a little disappointing ending. But we'll be back strong next year."
 
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