Portland men’s tennis lost a close match to No. 55 Loyola Marymount University (LMU) on April 23 in the opening round of the West Coast Conference Tournament at Green Valley Country Club in Fairfield, California.
The result ends Portland’s run in the tournament after a competitive match that lasted nearly four hours and featured several three-set singles contests. The loss came despite strong efforts from the Pilots, who managed two comeback wins during singles play and secured the doubles point early in the competition.
Portland started by winning two out of three doubles matches, with Stefan Skobelev and Tannor Binder taking a 6-3 victory at No. 3 doubles, followed by Nikola Keremedchiev and Cade Fernando clinching with a tiebreak win at No. 1 doubles. However, LMU regained momentum with straight set victories at the top two singles positions before Skobelev won his match at No. 4 singles to tie things up again.
Tom Garcia delivered another key win for Portland with a three-set triumph over Emil Kindhult at No. 3 singles, but LMU ultimately secured the team victory when Cyrus Ahmad defeated Binder in another three-set battle at No. 5 singles.
“I’m really proud of the effort today,” Portland head coach Aaron Gross said. “We had to battle over the last two weeks just to get into the tournament and then we put a ton of energy into doubles and got that point. We immediately lost the first set in all six of the singles matches, yet we were right there at the end to win it almost four hours into the match. Stefan and Tom really gave us a chance and Tannor, who got the clinch last week for us, was just a little bit hampered with an injury and couldn’t quite get us to the finish line, but he did a great job.”
LMU advances to Friday’s semifinals while Portland concludes its season with an overall record of eight wins and fourteen losses.
