Oregon men’s tennis concluded its fall season on a high note.
Playing in the Duck Invitational at the Student Tennis Center in Eugene, the Ducks came away with a pair of wins in the green singles flight and doubles flight.
“It was a really good weekend,” head coach Nils Schyllander said. “We got to play a lot of tennis and we played really good tennis.”
The tournament belonged to the Oregon duo of Thomas Laurent and Cormac Clissold.
Clissold and Laurent squared off against Portland’s Goutham Sundaram and Jamie Fisher in the finals of the doubles draw to open the final day of the tournament. The pair was ahead from the start. With the match never in much jeopardy, winning the match 8-6 to claim the doubles title.
“They won the big points,” Schyllander said. “It was never really in danger.”
Clissold and Laurent, however, did not have any time to celebrate. After the win, they went from playing together to being pitted against each other in the finals of the green singles flight.
The match ended up belonging to Laurent, who defeated Clissold in two sets, 6-4, 6-3. Clissold jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in the opening set, before Laurent rallied back, winning five straight games to take the first set. He then followed it up with an even stronger performance in the second set, breaking Clissold’s serve and holding on to take the set and match.
“I thought the quality [of the match] was very good,” Schyllander said. “Cormac has had a great weekend … and Thomas had to play his best tennis in order to get ahead.”
Over the course of the three-day tournament, the Ducks finished 4-1 in doubles and 11-3 in singles. Two of the three losses in the singles, however, were a result of two Ducks playing each other.
The invitational concludes the fall season for Oregon. The team has a lengthy break before kicking off its spring season in January.
“It’s going to be a lot of heavy conditioning now and getting ready for the spring,” Schyllander said.
Follow Cole Kundich on Twitter @ckundich