With just three weeks of training behind them, Oregon men’s tennis had a strong showing at the UCSB Classic, a three day tournament in Santa Barbara, California. It was their first competition of the year.
Jayson Amos and Armando Soemarno made their debut as a doubles duo and captured the Flight A doubles championship to pace what was an overall strong weekend of doubles play for Oregon.
“I thought Armando and Jayson played lights out all week, that was very encouraging,” Oregon head coach Nils Schyllander said. “(Daan Maasland and Simon Stevens) lost on the final day, but on their way to the finals they played really solid as well.”
“I thought our doubles play was really good.”
Amos and Soemarno topped Errol Smith and Luke Bohuslav of Loyola Marymount University 8-4 Sunday afternoon to capture the Flight A championship.
The win came after they had defeated duos from UC Davis and Pacific University earlier in the weekend.
For Soemarno, a freshman from Jakarta, Indonesia, it was his first top flight doubles championship.
Maasland and Stevens entered the season as Oregon’s most highly touted doubles group  — they were ranked 60th in the International Tennis Association’s preseason collegiate doubles rankings — but their season got off to a rocky start.
They lost their opening match to a duo from Fresno State University, but bounced back and won matches on Saturday and Sunday to ultimately place fifth in Flight A.
On the singles side, Maasland, who was ranked 60th in the ITA preseason collegiate singles rankings, lost in the Flight A championship to Billy Griffith of Cal Berkeley.
Schyllander said that he was overall pleased with what he saw from his team.
“All-in-all it was pretty good,” Schyllander said. “We got to play a boat-load of tennis and that’s what was important.”
Schyllander said that the Ducks will rest and recover until the middle of the week and then head back to the training courts to prep for the ITA Regionals on Oct. 25.
Follow Jarrid Denney on Twitter @jdenney50