Four members of the Cal men's tennis team competed in the Aggie Invitational, a tournament hosted by UC Davis at the Marya Welch Tennis Center.
Cal had dominated the home opener, Battle of the Bay Classic, and the team looked to extend this previous success.
After winning the doubles title and two ATP Challenger wildcards in their opening competition, the Bears went on to win six of eight matches at the Sherwood Collegiate Cup earlier in September. The Aggie Invitational was the fourth test of the season for Cal, which split duties this weekend between the competition in Davis and the ITA All-American Invitational in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Bears competed against a variety of other teams on the West Coast, including Nevada, Cal Poly, Pacific, Sacramento State and Santa Clara, among others.
Making his college debut for Cal was freshman Bernardo Munk Mesa. He joined the other Bears, including sophomores Jonathan Irwanto, Alex Aney and Ethan Schiffman.
Cal hoped to repeat its success at last year's tournament when two of its players, including Aney, reached the semi-finals of the men's singles.
The tournament started Friday with open singles play, where both Irwanto and Aney easily won their first matches against Nevada's Lucas Hammond and Davis's Eduardo Gonzalez, respectively. The Bears did not experience similar success in the blue doubles, as Irwanto and Munk Mesa lost 8-7 to Cal Polys Raz Haviv and Sean Kamyshev.
The Bears had some success on Saturday when Cal defeated a duo from the host school in the men's doubles. Irwanto joined forces with Munk Mesa to win 8-4 over the Aggies' Rithvik Katpelly and Ryan Torres in extra doubles. Irwanto also defeated Sam De Vries of Davis 6-4, 6-3 in the singles round of 32.
However, deeper runs for Cals runners were crushed when both Bears fell in the quarterfinals. Aney fell 7-6, 7-6 to Youssef Kadiri of Nevada and Irwanto fell to Torres 6-2, 6-3 of Davis. Munk Mesa was defeated in his two singles matches on Saturday, 6-4, 6-2, against Sac States Gur Libal and Daviss Gonzalez 6-2, 2-6, 11-9.
On the final day of the tournament, Aney won his first extra singles match when he cruised past Cal Poly's Bastiaan Weststrate in consecutive sets 6–2 and 7–5. Aney was the only Bear to post a victory on Sunday, as Irwanto fell to Sacramento States Henry Lamchinniah 6-3, 3-6, 10-5, and Munk Mesa fell to Santa Claras Lukas Maskow 6-3, 6-7( 4). ), 11-9.
The tournament, along with the ITA All-Americans tournament, was the biggest week of the season yet for Cal men's tennis. The Bears season continues this week at the Tiburon Challenger across the bay in Marin and then at the San Diego Veterans Tennis Classic.
