OJAI, Calif. – The #22 Pepperdine men's tennis program fought valiantly through four hours of gruesome tennis and almost earned the comeback win, but #19 San Diego prevailed and claimed the West Coast Conference Tournament championship with a 4-3 final on Saturday afternoon at the Weil Tennis Academy.
 
Pepperdine (17-7) took the first doubles match thanks to court three's pair of Enrique Luque Rico (Cordoba, Spain) and Tim Zeitvogel (Baden-Baden, Germany) dominating the Toreros, 6-1. San Diego would hang around, however, taking court two by a score of 6-3. Similar to the first meeting between the school two weeks ago, the doubles point came down to court one. After Pepperdine led 4-3, the 22^nd-ranked pair for San Diego (22-3) took command, winning the last three games to take the doubles point with a 6-4 victory.
 
Pepperdine struck first in singles as well to even the match at one apiece after Eero Vasa (Turku, Finland) earned a straight-set, 7-6 (1), 6-3 win on court six over Will Davies. The other five courts all went to third sets, and the first third-set winner belonged to #96 Andrew Rogers (Brentwood, Tenn.) who defeated Sacchitt Sharrma 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 to give the Waves their first lead of the day. It would be short-lived, however, as the Toreros tied things up with a third-set win of their own on court five.
 
With three courts remaining, the teams were deadlocked at two each. The marquee matchup of the day between a pair of top-25 foes on court one lived up to the hype, with San Diego taking the victory to retake a 3-2 lead. Rico kept Pepperdine alive with a three-set, tiebreak win on court four – 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (3) – over Alex Stater to force a winner-take-all match on court two. After USD raced out to a 4-1 lead in the third set, Pepperdine fought back to make it a 4-3 contest, but the Toreros pulled away to take the third set and win the WCC tournament title.
 
RESULTS
 
DOUBLES
 
#22 Holmgren/Osorio def. De Jonge/Vasa 6-4
Davies/Sharrma def. Rogers/Summaria 6-3
Rico/Zeitvogel def. Norfeldt/Schaber 6-1
 
Order of finish: 3, 2, 1
 
SINGLES
 
#5 Holmgren def. #23 De Jonge 3-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3
Osorio def. #62 Zeitvogel 6-4, 5-7, 6-3
#96 Rogers def. Sharrma 6-4, 1-6, 6-3
Rico def. Stater 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (3)
Norfeldt def. Summaria 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
Vasa def. Davies 7-6 (1), 6-3
 
Order of finish: 6, 3, 5, 1, 4, 2*
 
NEXT UP: Pepperdine will find out its NCAA Tournament destination and opponent on Monday through the NCAA Selection Show, which begins at 3:00 p.m. PT and will stream live on NCAA.com.
 
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