College Tennis : UCI Chances for NCAA Bid Dealt a Blow With Defeat

There wasn’t much justice in the No. 3 doubles match--UC Irvine’s Mike Cadigan and Steve Oliver against Pepperdine’s Grant Saacks and David Klembith--becoming the most important Tuesday at UC Irvine.

But deservedly or not, the fickle drama of a college tennis match turned all attention to the far doubles court, simply because with the team match score tied, 4-4, Cadigan-Oliver and Saacks-Klembith were the only ones still playing.

A victory over eighth-ranked Pepperdine (18-5) would have all but assured the Anteaters of an invitation to the NCAA championships at Athens, Ga., in May. But after a 5-4 loss, Irvine is a 16th-ranked, 24-10 team that must pin its hopes of making the nationals on winning the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. tournament this weekend. Or it must rely on simple good fortune in the complex regional selection process that determines the 20 tournament teams.

Irvine trailed, 4-2, after the singles and needed to sweep the doubles matches to win. The Anteaters took the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles matches in straight sets, and then it was up to Cadigan and Oliver.

They lost the first set, 7-5. In the second set, they trailed by 5-2 but battled back to force a tiebreaker. By that time, the spectators and other players had moved across the two courts that had been vacated after the two Irvine doubles victories, and they stood at center court to watch.

Pepperdine went ahead in the tiebreaker, 7-6, on Saacks’ forehand winner, and won the match when Cadigan double-faulted on match point.

“I wanted that so bad,” said Greg Patton, Irvine coach, who put the Anteaters’ NCAA chances at 60% after the loss. Pepperdine Coach Allen Fox, whose team is all but certain to make the tournament, put Irvine’s chances at 50%.

Irvine players took the first set in four of the six singles matches, but two of those four matches turned into Pepperdine victories. Pepperdine’s No. 1 player, Andrew Sznajder, a 19-year-old, hard-hitting freshman ranked third nationally, came back to defeat Mark Kaplan, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. No. 2 Robbie Weiss came back against Trevor Kronemann, 6-7, 6-1, 6-4.

In the Irvine singles victories, No. 3 Julian Barham defeated Martin Laurendeau, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, and No. 5 Darren Yates defeated Saacks, 6-4, 7-6.

In doubles, Kaplan and Kronemann (No. 1) defeated Laurendeau and Craig Johnson, 6-4, 6-3, and Barham and Yates (No. 2) defeated Sznajder and Weiss, 7-6, 6-3.

University of San Diego 6, Chapman 2--No. 1 singles player Miles Walker and the No. 2 doubles team of Barry Hancock and Paul Charlesworth won for Chapman (19-10) at San Diego.