(Photo: Mason Kern/WCSN)
The Arizona State men’s tennis team heads to southern California for the second time this season as they are set to face No. 4 Ohio State on a neutral court at the Griffin Club in Los Angeles later today. After a 4-3 loss to then No. 3 Stanford and a rainout against Cal, the Sun Devils find themselves ranked 26th nationally.
ASU was riding an eight-match winning streak prior to their defeat at the hands of the Cardinal. The Sun Devils put up a tough fight in that one, taking the doubles point, but lost four singles matches which sealed the victory for Stanford.
A rainout forced ASU’s next match against Cal to be suspended.
There is no rest for this Arizona State team, however, as they take on yet another Oracle/ITA Division I Top-5 opponent in Ohio State. The match is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. MST.
The Buckeyes come into the match 12-2 on the year. They have an impressive résumé having beaten quality opponents–some of which whom beat the Sun Devils earlier in the year. They boast wins against No. 5 North Carolina, No. 6 Texas A&M, a sweep of No. 10 Texas, No. 12 Florida, a sweep of No. 17 Duke and No. 18 Notre Dame. Their only two losses are to No. 3 UCLA in the quarterfinals of the ITA Indoors, and No. 14 Georgia this past Wednesday.
To begin the season, the Sun Devils stacked their schedule with a gauntlet of tough opponents. They suffered losses against both Duke and Texas A&M.
However, that was before this team got hot. Granted the schedule got slightly less challenging, but the Sun Devils were able to rack up quality wins en route to an eight-match winning streak that also saw a tournament victory at the 70th annual Blue Gray Tennis Classic. Some notable wins in that streak included a comeback 4-3 victory against current No. 44 University of San Diego and a 4-3 defeat of current No. 38 Alabama in the championship match of the tournament.
The Buckeyes roster includes four top-60 singles players, including the current No. 2 player in the country in Mikael Torpegaard, as well as a top-10 doubles pairing. The Sun Devils on the other hand have three players that crack the Oracle/ITA Division I National Singles Rankings.
Freshman captain Benjamin Hannestad sits at No. 51, senior captain Michaël Geerts is at No. 61 and sophomore Makey Rakotomalala sneaked into the rankings at No. 116 as of March 6, the last time the singles rankings were updated.
The Sun Devils will look to improve upon their 8-4 record against the surging Buckeyes. The team will next head to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden to participate in the Indian Wells Tournament from March 15-17.
