ASU Men’s Tennis: No. 27 Sun Devils drop two top-15 road matches to close regular season

(Photo: Patricia Vicente/WCSN)

A week after sweeping No. 44 Utah at home on Senior Day, No. 27 Arizona State hit the road to Los Angeles hoping to convert its upward momentum into a positive weekend prior to the 2019 Pac-12 Championships next week.

Instead, however, the Sun Devils (13-12, 4-4 Pac-12) dropped back-to-back matches against No. 14 UCLA and No. 10 USC.

On Friday, ASU secured the doubles point against the Bruins (15-4, 8-0), but fell flat in singles. It dropped four of five individual matches to give UCLA a 4-2 victory.

Leading the way for doubles was the sophomore pair of Andrea Bolla and Tim Ruehl, who clinched the doubles point for the Sun Devils with a 6-4 win on court two. Graduate transfer Justin Roberts and junior Makey Rakotomalala also earned a victory on court three. The No. 11 junior tandem of Nathan Ponwith and Dominik Kellovsky battled in a tough slate against UCLA’s No. 5 pairing, but fell 6-4.

But, after taking the 1-0 lead, ASU couldn’t capitalize as the Bruins pulled out four wins across the top courts. While UCLA did pull out the victory, ASU coach Matt Hill still found positive takeaways from the team’s loss.

“While we took a loss today, we’re continuing to move in the right direction,” Hill said. “The conversations we’re having about what we need to improve on are much more advanced conversations than what we were having two months ago and that’s a good thing.”

The lone bright spot in singles came from Bolla, who earned a straight set victory on court five to narrow UCLA’s lead. It was his fourth straight individual victory.

To close out the weekend, the Sun Devils found themselves facing yet another top-10 opponent, this time in No. 1o USC (17-7, 7-1).

Despite another solid doubles performance, ASU struggled to find its rhythm in singles conceding to USC in a 4-2 defeat on Saturday.

Similar to Friday’s match, the Sun Devils took a 1-0 advantage after sweeping the doubles point. It was the team’s 10th straight doubles point win. They have won 19 doubles points across 25 matches. But entering singles, USC sent four players ranked in the top-80 of the Oracle/ITA rankings across the top-4 courts. That’s a tough matchup no matter who the opponent is.

That included No. 10 junior Brandon Holt who beat No. 75 Ponwith in straight sets, as well as No. 16 sophomore Daniel Cukierman who defeated Kellovsky 6-3, 6-2.

With four singles victories, the Trojans put ASU away sending the team back home with a pair of losses in a winless weekend. The defeats put a hard break on the success the Sun Devils had experienced lately, snapping a six-match winning streak.

Although it wasn’t the best result for the team, there were a number of Sun Devils who performed well over the road weekend.

Bolla was a bright spot Bolla, as he closed the weekend with two singles and two doubles wins. He improved to 7-8 in singles and 12-4 in doubles spanned across three different partners this season.

“He’s really starting to get his arms around his concept of play,” Hill said. “It’s taken some time to get him to be able to translate that into match play and high pressure situations, so it was really good to see from him.”

ASU closed the regular season winning six of its last 10, including wins over then-No. 25 Arizona and then-No. 42 Oregon earlier this month. The Sun Devils currently end the season tied with California for fifth in the Pac-12 standings with a 4-4 conference record.

ASU begins the 2019 Pac-12 Championships on Wednesday, April 24, after the official bracket is released on Monday.

Match Results:

No. 27 ASU vs. No. 14 UCLA (4-2 loss)

Doubles

1. No. 5 Maxime Cressy/Keegan Smith (UCLA) def. No. 11 Nathan Ponwith/Dominik Kellovsky (ASU) – 6-4
2. Tim Ruehl/Andrea Bolla (ASU) def. Govind Nanda/Connor Rapp (UCLA) – 6-4^
3. Justin Roberts/Makey Rakotomalala (ASU) vs. Bryce Pereira/Patrick Zahraj (UCLA) –6-3

Order of finish: 3, 1, 2^

^ Clinched doubles point

Singles

1. No. 20 Maxime Cressy (UCLA) def. No. 75 Nathan Ponwith (ASU) – 6-2, 6-3
2. No. 37 Keegan Smith (UCLA) def. Dominik Kellovsky (ASU) – 6-4, 6-1
3. No. 45 Govind Nanda (UCLA) def. Justin Roberts (ASU) – 6-4, 6-4
4. Patrick Zahraj (UCLA) def. Tim Ruehl (ASU) – 6-3, 2-6, 6-3*
5. Andrea Bolla (ASU) def. Ben Goldberg (UCLA) – 6-4, 6-4
6. Makey Rakotomalala (ASU) vs. Mathew Tsolakyan (UCLA) – 6-4, 6-7(3), 3-2 (susp.)

Order of finish: 2, 1, 3, 5, 4*, 6 (susp.)

*Clinched victory

No. 27 ASU vs. No. 10 USC (4-2 loss)

Doubles

1.  No. 11 Nathan Ponwith/Dominik Kellovsky (ASU) vs. Brandon Holt/Laurens Verboven (USC) – 5-6 (susp.)
2. Tim Ruehl/Andrea Bolla (ASU) def. Riley Smith/Tanner Smith (USC) – 7-6(3)^
3. Justin Roberts/Makey Rakotomalala (ASU) def. Daniel Cukierman/Jack Jaede (USC) – 6-3

Order of finish: 3, 2^, (1 susp.)

^ Clinched doubles point

Singles

1. No. 10 Brandon Holt (USC) def. No. 75 Nathan Ponwith (ASU) – 6-3, 6-2
2. No. 16 Daniel Cukierman (USC) def. Dominik Kellovsky (ASU) – 6-3, 6-2
3. No. 26 Laurens Verboven (USC) def. Justin Roberts (ASU) – 7-6(2), 6-3*
4. Tim Ruehl (ASU) vs. No. 77 Logan Smith (USC) – 6-7(5), 3-2 (susp.)
5. Andrea Bolla (ASU) def. Riley Smith (USC) – 6-4, 7-5
6. Mor Bulis (USC) def. Makey Rakotomalala (ASU) – 6-2, 6-1

Order of finish: 2, 6, 1, 5, 3* (4 susp.)

*Clinched victory

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