No. 12 USC Men Seek Revenge In Bay Area Road Trip

THIS WEEK

No. 12 USC dives back into Pac-12 competition this week and is looking to avenge two early-season losses to two conference foes. The Trojans (11-6, 1-0 Pac-12) will first seek revenge against No. 40 California (9-7, 2-0) in a 5 p.m. matchup on Friday (March 29) in Berkeley. From there, it's down to Palo Alto to take on No. 10 Stanford (11-2, 2-0) at 1 p.m. on Saturday (March 30).

ORACLE/ITA RANKINGS UPDATES

For the 12th straight season, the USC men's tennis team kicked off the new year ranked in the nation's top-10 of the Oracle/ITA rankings, ranked No. 5 in the nation to open the spring. The latest ITA team rankings (released March 26) have the Trojans now at No. 12 in the nation. The latest individual rankings also were released March 19, with six Trojans ranked in singles and one ranked doubles team. Sophomore Daniel Cukierman leads the way at No. 10 in the nation in singles. Junior Brandon Holt now sits at No. 17, with senior Laurens Verboven at No. 28. They're followed by fellow seniors Tanner Smith at No. 53 and Logan Smith at No. 71, while freshman Bradley Frye stands at No. 83. In doubles, USC has Holt and Riley Smith now ranked at No. 16 in the land.

SCOUTING CAL

The No. 40 Golden Bears are 9-7 overall after beating Nevada and Saint Mary's both 4-0 last week. Cal has no players ranked nationally in singles. In doubles, Cal has #13 Brumm/Kikuchi and #79 Barretto/Kaya in the national rankings. In a series dating back to 1927, USC is 141-45 all-time against Cal after a 4-3 loss to the Golden Bears last month at Marks Stadium. Last year, USC beat Cal 4-2 in their Pac-12 meeting in Los Angeles.

SCOUTING STANFORD

The No. 10 Cardinal is 11-2 overall after 4-0 wins over ASU and Arizona in its last action. Stanford has four players ranked nationally in singles: #8 Axel Geller, #33 Alexandre Rotsaert, #60 William Genesen and #61 Sameer Kumar. In doubles, Stanford has #43 Geller/Rotsaert in the national rankings. In a series dating back to 1925, USC is 115-81 all-time against Stanford after a 4-3 loss to the Cardinal last month at Marks Stadium. Last year, USC lost to Stanford 6-1 and 4-2 during the regular season and then claimed a 4-0 win over the Cardinal in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals.

LAST ACTION

USC took down No. 3 Texas in a strong showing in Austin, upsetting the host Longhorns 4-2 as freshman Mor Bulis registered his first match-clinching singles win as a Trojan. USC had won the doubles point, but Texas pulled things even at 2-2 during singles. The Trojans dug back in, with Brandon Holt upsetting a top-10 opponent on court one before Bulis came through in the clutch from court six. USC surged to snag the first point of the day with solid wins on courts two and three. At the No. 3 spot, USC's Daniel Cukierman and Tanner Smith whipped up a 6-4 decision over Texas' Huang/Ito to start things off on a winning note for the Trojans. Soon after, on court two, USC seniors Jack Jaede and Laurens Verboven notched a 6-3 victory over Makes/Telles to take USC to a 1-0 lead and one into singles play. At the No. 5 singles slot, Riley Smith tugged the Trojans to a 2-0 lead when he took out Texas' Colin Market 6-3, 6-2. USC and Texas had split first sets down the line, and the Longhorns fired back with #59 Harrison Scott's 6-3, 6-2 win over USC's #71 Logan Smith on court four to get Texas on the board. The Longhorns would lock even on a 6-4, 6-3 win by #9 Yuya Ito over USC's #10 Daniel Cukierman, snarling the score at 2-2. At the top spot, USC's #17 Brandon Holt upended Texas' top gun #6 Christian Sigsgaard with a 6-4, 6-4 Trojan victory that put USC back on top, up 3-2 with two tight matches still raging on. On court six, USC newcomer Mor Bulis had snagged the first set but was down 5-6 in the second until the freshman dug down and rallied to come through with his first clinching victory of the year. Bulis dropped Texas' Chih Chi Huang 6-2, 7-5 to secure a huge road win for the Trojans with a 4-2 decision over No. 3 Texas.

SPREADING THE WEALTH

Riley Smith's match-clinching singles win vs. UCLA made him the seventh Trojan to clinch victory this year. In fact, USC's first seven wins had each been secured by a different Trojan. Daniel Cukierman (Cal Poly), Brandon Holt (Florida), Jake Sands (UC Santa Barbara), Logan Smith (UC Davis), Tanner Smith (San Francisco) and Laurens Verboven (South Carolina) all claimed a clincher apiece in USC opening stretch. Coming through with the double? That was freshman Sands, who snagged his second match-clinching victory in USC's road win at Utah. He's since clinched his third match (ASU), while Verboven now has two clinchers to his name after netting the winner vs. Cornell. Meanwhil, joining the party over the weekend was freshman Mor Bulis, who clinched his first match as a Trojan with a big win from court six at No. 3 Texas.

BY THE NUMBERS

USC's winningest player to date is sophomore Daniel Cukierman, who has racked up 25 singles wins to stand as the lone Trojan in that 20-win zone. Closing in on that club is Jake DeVine with 18 singles wins so far. In the doubles realm, two Trojan duos have hit double digits in the win column. Brandon Holt and Riley Smith as well as Cukierman and Tanner Smith have notched 12 wins as doubles tandems. In dual matches, Holt leads the pack with 10 singles wins, with Cukierman and freshman Jake Sands next in line with nine and eight dual-match singles victories, respectively.

BULIS BREAKS THROUGH

USC freshman Mor Bulis dealt the deciding blow for the Trojans in their 4-2 upset of No. 3 Texas last weekend in Austin. For his heroics, he was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week. Standing tall on court six, Bulis stepped up to secure his first match-clinching singles win with a 6-2, 7-5 decision over Texas' Chih Chi Huang. Bulis' victory sealed the deal on a 4-2 win over the Longhorns, and claimed USC's second win over a top-5 opponent this season. Bulis, who joined the Trojans this spring, is now 4-4 overall in singles play after this clincher in Austin. He's the second Trojan to be named Pac-12 Player of the Week this season, following two selections for Brandon Holt, as USC now boast 53 all-time picks for the conference's weekly award.

HOLT DOUBLES UP ON PAC-12 PLAYER OF THE WEEK HONORS

Junior Brandon Holt has now snagged two Pac-12 Player of the Week honors, running his career total up to three and USC's all-time count to 52. On Jan. 29, Holt was honored after USC's 3-0 start to the season, in which Holt collected the first doubles win of the new year, winning on court one in USC's historic season-opening dual match against No. 25 South Carolina — played on the courts of the Australian Open in Melbourne. Then, back in Los Angeles, Holt swept through two singles and two doubles victories in USC's winning run at ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Most recently, Holt snagged three singles wins — two over ranked opponents — and went 2-1 in doubles during USC's run to the final at the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge in Indian Wells. Holt is now 12-6 overall in singles play this season, while he and Smith boast a 12-4 record together in doubles.

AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURES

In the first-ever collegiate dual match to be played at a Grand Slam, No. 5 USC showed resilience under a warm Australian sun on its official 2019 opener, gutting out a 4-0 victory over No. 25 South Carolina on the courts of the Australian Open in Melbourne. The Trojans snagged a quick doubles point and looked in position for a swift string of singles wins until the Gamecocks dug in and forced three sets on four courts. USC was able to net straight-set wins from freshman Jake Sands and sophomore Daniel Cukierman before things got tangled, and then Laurens Verboven came through with the clincher to wrap USC's memorable visit to Melbourne and get USC a 1-0 start to the 2019 campaign. The doubles point was a quick fix for the Trojans, who rattled off two swift victories to pocket a 1-0 lead. At the No. 1 spot, Brandon Holt and Riley Smith peeled out to a 6-1 win, putting Daniel Cukierman and Bradley Frye in position to snag the opening point. The sophomore-freshman duo locked in with a 6-2 victory on court three, and the Trojans were off to singles play with the 1-0 advantage in their court. In singles, USC claimed first sets down the line, but the Gamecocks fired back on four courts. At the No. 6 spot, however, USC freshman Jake Sands held firm and scored USC's first singles win of the day on a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Jake Beasley to make it 2-0 Trojans. Next, USC's #8 Daniel Cukierman sidestepped a third and closed out a 6-2, 7-5 win over South Carolina's Yancy Davis on court two, and USC was up 3-0 with four courts tangled up in third sets. On court one, Brandon Holt rebounded from dropping the first set in a tiebreaker against #7 Paul Jubb, and the top guns would continue to battle in the third while the finish line neared on other courts. Jack Jaede and Riley Smith were both in tight third sets on courts four and five, respectively, while #19 Laurens Verboven also was in lockstep with South Carolina's Daniel Rodrigues on court three. Finally, Verboven found the finishing touch, getting one last break to clinch the match on his 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 win. That suspended the remaining matches, and sends USC home to Los Angeles with a key win to build momentum in the early goings of the 2019 season.

FALL SUCCESS

Several Trojans had impactful falls, with Daniel Cukierman winning the SoCal Intercollegiate title and reaching the Oracle ITA Fall Singles Final, Logan Smith winning the ITA Southwest Regional title, Laurens Verboven claiming the ITA Oracle Masters championship, and Tanner Smith reaching the ITA Southwest Regional final. In November, Jack Jaede would scoop up the Jack Kramer Collegiate singles title with a championship match win over teammate Jake DeVine. DeVine and Bradley Frye also had strong showings at the ITA All-American qualifying rounds.

LAST SEASON

USC went 20-9 overall last year with a run to the NCAA Quarterfinals, finishing the 2018 season ranked No. 11 in the nation. For the first time since 1993, USC men's tennis landed multiple Trojan doubles pairs on the ITA All-America honor roll. It also was 25 years ago that USC last finished a season with more than three ITA All-Americans, as the Trojans boasted four honorees for 2018 in Brandon Holt, Riley Smith, Jack Jaede and Laurens Verboven. All but Holt were first-time All-Americans, with Holt adding 2018 singles and doubles All-American honors to his 2017 singles pick from his freshman campaign. Holt and Smith finished 2018 ranked as the No. 9 doubles team in the nation to secure their doubles All-American status, while Jaede and Verboven snagged their first All-American honors as a 5-8 seed in the NCAA Doubles draw as well as a No. 10 final ranking. A three-time All-American, Brandon Holt secured his second singles selection as a 9-16 seed in his second appearance in the NCAA Singles draw. Holt also powered through to the NCAA Round of 16 in singles and in doubles with Smith.

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Players Mentioned

Mor Bulis

Daniel Cukierman

Jake DeVine

Bradley Frye

Brandon Holt

Jack Jaede

Jake Sands

Logan Smith

Riley Smith

Tanner Smith

Laurens Verboven