AZUSA, Calif. -- Exactly one year ago, the Azusa Pacific men's tennis team went down to La Jolla and handed UC San Diego its first loss of the season with a 5-4 victory. On Saturday, the Tritons returned the favor as Eric Tseng defeated Christian Schmid in a three-set battle to clinch the upset, handing Azusa Pacific its first loss of the season.
Match Results
UC San Diego was ranked fourth in the West Region in the preseason polls behind No. 2 Azusa Pacific. With two teams from each region advancing to nationals, that put a huge target on the Cougars, and the Tritons scored the upset in the first of two meetings between the programs.
Azusa Pacific grabbed the early lead with an 8-3 win from Schmid and Jan Meyer at No. 1 doubles. However, the Tritons responded brilliantly saving match points both at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles before winning both sets in tiebreakers to grab a 2-1 lead heading into singles action.
"Those missed opportunities hurt and it's easy to think back on what could have been," head coach Mark Bohren said, "but it's better for this type of thing to happen now than later in the season. We have to get back to work now and get better from this."
The Cougars retook the lead with three singles victories, needing just one more to continue their perfect start to 2016. However, in the last match left on court, Schmid trailed 0-5 in the deciding set at No. 2 singles.
The German got one of the three breaks of serve back and held to make the score 2-5. After saving multiple match points, Schmid broke again to stay alive in the match as the sun set.
The match was moved to across the street at Citrus College to play under the lights. Schmid consolidated the break to force Tseng to try to serve out the match for the third time, and this time the Triton took care of business sealing the victory.
For Schmid, it was his first defeat in either singles or doubles this season, coming in his second consecutive three-set match in just two days.
At No. 1 singles, Meyer defeated the No. 15 singles player in the nation Axel Bouillin 6-2, 7-5 in a rematch of the West Region championship in the fall. Meyer is now 4-0 in his career against Bouillin, dropping just one set.
Alan Leahy claimed a three-set victory at No. 4 singles to improve to 4-0 this season, while freshman Marnix Pluim earned a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 6 singles.
Azusa Pacific plays again on Friday against Westmont at 1:30pm on the Cougar Tennis Complex before hosting Point Loma on Saturday in another West Region contest.
