PORTLAND, Ore. — The No. 23 Pepperdine men's tennis team completed its final regular-season West Coast Conference road swing by sweeping Portland on Sunday afternoon.
For the second straight match, the Waves (14-8, 4-1 WCC) won the doubles point, then used straight-set wins from No. 19 Edward Winter, Aleksa Pisaric and Lasse Poertner to finish the job. As a result, Pepperdine will carry a two-match win streak heading into this Friday's home showdown against the No. 7 San Diego Toreros.
Playing with another new doubles lineup, Pepperdine won two matches to claim the doubles point. Chris Papa and Hugh Winter got on the board first with a 6-2 win at the third position, then a new pairing of Edward Winter and David Fix clinched the doubles point with a 6-3 win on court one.
In singles play, the Waves went on to win four of the six first sets to complete the sweep. Winning his team-high 15th match of the season, No. 19 Edward Winter faced little resistance from Maxim Groysman at the first position. Winter was never broken in his match; in his first set, Winter broke Groysman at deuce in the second game and didn't look back to win 6-1. A break-point winner in the third game wound up being the difference, as Winter went on to win 6-1, 6-2.
Over on court three, Aleksa Pisaric persevered through a tiebreak first set to eventually win in straight sets over Stevan Skobelev. Skobelev held serve in the 12th game to send the first set to a tiebreaker, yet Pisaric rattled off four-straight points and was never in danger of losing the lead in his 7-6 (3) first-set win. Despite going down a break in the second set in the fourth game, Pisaric broke Skobelev in the seventh game to put the match back on serve, then broke Skobelev at deuce in the ninth game before serving out his 7-6 (3), 6-4 win.
Finally, Lasse Poertner clinched the match with his win over Nikola Keremedchiev on court two. Poertner never faced a deciding point in his first set, which he won 6-3, yet Keremedchiev raised his level in the second set. Keremedchiev broke Poertner in the fifth game, but Poertner broke back at deuce in the eighth game to put the match back on serve. Both players didn't budge until the second-set tiebreak, where Poertner won the first two points and didn't look back en route to a 6-3, 7-6 (3) match-clinching win.
Pepperdine returns to Malibu for the final week of regular-season action, starting with a big match against the No. 7 San Diego Toreros on Friday, April 18 at 2 p.m. All schedule updates can be found on the men's tennis team's schedule page on pepperdinewaves.com.
RESULTS
Singles
1. #19 Edward Winter (PEPP) def. Maxim Groysman (POR) 6-1, 6-2
2. Lasse Poertner (PEP) def. Nikola Keremedchiev (POR) 6-3, 7-6 (7-3)
3. Aleksa Pisaric (PEP) def. Stefan Skobelev (POR) 7-6 (7-3), 6-4
4. David Fix (PEPP) vs. Tom Garcia (POR) 7-5, 4-3, unfinished
5. Lucas Kimelman (POR) vs. Hugh Winter (PEPP) 6-4, unfinished
6. Cade Fernando (POR) vs. Chris Papa (PEPP) 7-6 (5), unfinished
Order of finish: 1,3,2*
Doubles
1. Edward Winter/David Fix (PEPP) def. Maxim Groysman/Stefan Skobelev (POR) 6-3
2. Aleksa Pisaric/Lasse Poertner (PEPP) vs. Nikola Keremedchiev/Cade Fernando (POR) 5-3, unfinished
3. Chris Papa/Hugh Winter (PEPP) def. Tom Garcia/Lucas Kimelman (POR) 6-2
Order of finish: 2,1,3*
