The Cal Poly men’s tennis team nabbed a No. 1 seed in the Big West Tournament last month after an undefeated regular season in conference play. With the help of senior Sebastian Bell’s third-set tiebreaker, the Mustangs took down rival UC Santa Barbara in Indian Wells to capture the Big West Tournament championship a week later.
Now, No. 63 Cal Poly looks to play a bit of role reversal, as the Mustangs enter this weekend as underdogs facing No. 19-ranked Texas Tech in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships.
“We’ve been in that situation before in a couple matches this year against Washington and San Diego,” head coach Nick Carless said. “I think (the team) is going to embrace it and it will bring out their best tennis.”
The Mustangs (15-7) won both the Big West regular season and tournament title in 2012, garnering an automatic bid to the opening round of the Division I championships in Berkeley this Saturday. In the conference tournament, Cal Poly defeated UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara on successive days to earn the Big West’s only qualifying spot in the round of 64.
Boasting a spotless conference record of 5-0 this season, Cal Poly became only the third team in Big West history to go undefeated in conference play.
But the Mustangs finished 6-6 against ranked opponents, a trend Carless said the team is looking to reverse come tournament time.
“We’re going to have to play our best tennis (of the year),” Carless said.
The Mustangs will face a formidable foe in Texas Tech (15-8) in the California Regional on Saturday; the team is making its sixth straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Red Raiders dropped a tight match to the Gauchos earlier in the season, 4-3, in Santa Barbara.
No. 14-seed California will host the University of Texas-San Antonio after Cal Poly’s opening tilt with the Red Raiders on Saturday. The winners of the two matches will then face each other in the second round at 3 p.m. to determine who advances from the Regional.
The tournament will feature a standard collegiate tennis format with three doubles matches being played followed by singles. The team to win two of three doubles matches earns a point and every subsequent singles match won will also count as a point. First team to four points wins in the single-elimination format.
Junior Andre Dome, the 2012 Big West Player of the Year, anchors the team and will likely face No. 43 Gonzalo Escobar in singles. An Arroyo Grande High School standout, Dome enters the match ranked 40th.
Bell begins the postseason play having won four straight singles matches including the Big West championship match on April 29. The Glen Waverley, Australia-native improved his record to 13-7 in singles play with the win and looks to keep the momentum rolling against Texas Tech.
“(UCSB) was a huge win for us, especially for me, and there’s no doubt we’ve taken some confidence from that,” Bell said. “These last two weeks off gave us a good little rest, and everyone has come back firing for this weekend.”
Dome and Fawcett, the No. 64 doubles team in the nation, will have their hands full likely facing No. 19-ranked Raony Carvalho and Gonzalo Escobar. According to Carless, the Mustangs will look to gain an advantage in the doubles point to make up for the depth that the Brazilian-dominated Red Raiders bring in singles play.
Carless also said Texas Tech plays a unique style of tennis using a lot of spin and endurance to wear opponents down. He believes this will make for Cal Poly’s toughest opponent thus far. The Red Raiders won the only other meeting between the two teams, 6-1, during the 2001 season.
Dome and Fawcett will also play together later this month at the NCAA Doubles Tournament in Athens, Georgia — an honor Fawcett said is well deserved based on the work the two put in throughout the year.
“We’ve got absolutely nothing to lose,” Fawcett said. “I really feel that in the best of three sets (Dome and I) are going to be really difficult to beat.”
Dome will also take part in the singles championship by virtue of the Big West’s automatic qualifying spot earned as the top singles player in the conference. He is set to play in Athens following the conclusion of the team championships.
“That was my goal last summer — to make it into the tournament and make a statement and put my name and Cal Poly on the map,” Dome said.