UCI Men’s Tennis Team Continues Road Horror Show With Auburn Loss

Greg Patton, UC Irvine tennis coach, thought his team’s four-game road trip through Southern states would provide the Anteaters with a string of victories and an enhanced national ranking.

But after the Anteaters (12-7) dropped their third straight match on the trip, 5-3 to Auburn in a 13th-place match of the Blue-Gray National Championships at Montgomery Ala., Patton was thinking of other things. Horror movies.

“This match was like the rerun of some scary film,” Patton said. “It was thrilling, but my hero always seems to get slashed in the end.”

For the second straight match, the fortunes of UCI tennis hinged on tiebreakers. UCI lost to Kentucky, 5-4, on a tiebreaker, and Saturday’s match was decided by two tiebreakers.

UCI’s Bruce Man Son Hing lost to Marcel VanDerMerwe, 6-2, 6-7, 7-6, in No. 1 singles. The match was decided by a third-set tiebreaker won by VanDerMerwe, 10-8. The win gave Auburn a 3-2 lead in the match.

UCI’s Mike Cadigan lost to Rocky Mason, 6-2, 2-6, 7-6, in a final-set tiebreaker won by Mason, 10-8.

“In the span of a minute we go from being tied 2-2, to being down 4-2,” Patton said.

The Anteaters, ranked No. 22 in the country, play North Carolina today.

“If we lose, I think I’ll be hitchhiking back to California,” he said. “I thought we’d be 4-0 on this trip, if we end up 0-4 I don’t want to get back home too soon.”