USC Beats UC Irvine in Tennis

The USC men’s tennis team, ranked second in the nation, rebounded from its weekend loss to Stanford, beating sixth-ranked UC Irvine, 5-2, at USC Wednesday.

Irvine--playing without its No. 1 singles player, Mark Kaplan, who was ill--pulled off upsets in the top two singles matches. Trevor Kroneman, Irvine’s No. 2 singles player who replaced Kaplan in the top spot, upset USC’s Scott Melville, ranked fourth nationally, 6-1, 1-6, 7-6. In No. 2 singles, Richard Lubner beat USC’s John Carras, 6-3, 6-4.

But USC came back to win the other four singles matches. After USC’s Murphy Jensen and Scott Brownsberger clinched the Trojan victory with a 6-1, 6-2 doubles victory over Lubner and Chris Ewing, both sides agreed to forfeit the final two doubles matches.

USC is 20-3. Irvine’s record is 17-5.