UC Irvine Men’s Tennis (11-7, 3-1) defeated Cal Poly (13-8, 4-1) by 4-1 at Anteater Tennis Stadium on April 10. With this win, they remained undefeated in Big West play and achieved a four-game win streak.
UCI started the game winning doubles, clinching the point and placing the score 1-0 in their favor. The final scores for the second and third court were both 6-2, with UCI graduate students Tal Goodman and Hiroki Sakagawa defeating Cal Poly juniors Sean Ferguson and Raz Haviv on court two, and UCI graduate student Sohrob Amiryavari and freshman Alex Guajardo defeating senior Aaron Eliscu and graduate student Luc Hoeijmans on court three. The game on the first court was unfinished, with Anteater’s junior Max Fardanesh and graduate student Rohan Sachdev against Mustang’s freshmen Jovan Lubbe and Leo Matthysen.
The first singles match to conclude was between Cal Poly’s Haviv and UCI’s Amiryavari on court four, with the first set ending 6-3 and second set ending 6-1, both in favor of Cal Poly. The match was the only point Cal Poly scored. In the second singles match, Anteater Fardanesh clinched the point in a match against Eliscu on court two, winning two out of three sets. The third singles match was another UCI win, with Anteater sophomore Ruining Huang going against Cal Poly sophomore Jack Cross on court five. Huang defeated Cross, winning 7-5 in the first set and 6-3 in the second.
Two of the singles matches were both abandoned in their third set. On court six, UCI freshman Greg Gamal faced Cal Poly’s Ferguson. The first set was 6-3 Cal Poly, the second was 7-5 UCI, and the third ended at 3-1 with Gamal in the lead. On the third court, Goodman and Hoeijmans had an extremely even match, the first set ending 6-4 Anteaters, the second set ending 6-4 Mustangs, and the third being abandoned at a score of 1-1. The back and forth fight kept the entire audience on the edge of their seats.
The final match to finish took place on court one, between Sakagawa and Lubbe. Lubbe’s lively playing style had him reprimanded by the chair umpire, who had to ask him not to taunt his opponent or the Anteaters Women’s Tennis team, who had come to cheer on men’s tennis. However, Lubbe did not receive any penalty and the match continued. Despite Lubbe’s attempt to get in Sakagawa’s head, UCI’s player won the first set, after winning the 9-7 tie breaker, ending with a 7-6 score for the set. He then almost froze Lubbe completely, winning the second set 6-1, and concluding the match, clinching the 4-1 victory for UCI.
UC Irvine played against No. 32 UC Santa Barbara at Arnhold Tennis Center, where they fell 4-2 on April 12. UCI will take on the University of Hawai’i at Anteater Tennis Stadium on April 17.
Milo Cramer is a Sports Intern for the spring 2026 quarter. They can be reached at mncramer@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor and Geneses Navarro.
