![\"Stanford](\"http:\/\/www.stanforddaily.com\/cgi-bin\/wp-content\/uploads\/spo011910mt.jpg\" "\\"spo011910mt\\"")
<\/p>\nStanford Daily File Photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI think the team as a whole we had a pretty good showing,\u201d Klahn said. \u201cSingles, guys were plying pretty well and had some good wins. Doubles was decent; I think we got a lot of room for improvement, but we\u2019re heading in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klahn defeated Baylor\u2019s Denes Lukacs 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday afternoon to claim his second singles title of the year. Klahn took home hardware at the ITA Northwest Regional Championships previously in the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt pretty good the entire week,\u201d Klahn said. \u201cI got better with each match and was playing my best tennis by the middle of the semis and finals. I improved my serve and backhand. That was one of things I was working on the most over the summer and fall and it\u2019s starting to show.\u201d<\/p>\n
The championship victory was especially gratifying for junior Alex Clayton, who lost to Lukacs 0-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals. Clayton reached the semis after the No. 1 seed in the tournament, USC\u2019s Steve Johnson, could not play due to back spasms.<\/p>\n
There were more Stanford ties in the tournament. Nine Cardinal players entered the singles tournament and five – Klahn, Clayton, Thacher, freshman Matt Kandath and senior Richard Wire – survived the first round. In the second round, Wire and Kandath both fell in straight sets to USC\u2019s top two players – Johnson and Robert Farah.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel in much better shape now than I did before the tournament,\u201d Wire said. \u201cI think everyone used it as a good warm-up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the quarterfinals, Klahn and Thacher, Stanford\u2019s No. 1 ranked doubles team, squared off against each other. Thacher kept it close in the first set, losing in a tiebreaker, but could not keep up with Klahn in the second set, losing 6-2.<\/p>\n
On the doubles side, the Cardinal, which has been mixing up the lineup and pairings, had a solid, if unspectacular, showing. Klahn and Thacher had a bye into the quarterfinals. Clayton and Wire, Stanford\u2019s No. 2 ranked team, advanced out of the first round, while the duos of freshman Walker Kehrer and junior Ted Kelly and Kandath and freshman Denis Lin had early exits.<\/p>\n
In the quarterfinals, Klahn and Thacher made quick work of their UC-Irvine opponents, defeating them 8-3. Clayton and Wire lost 8-3 to a USC team featuring the same Johnson who could play Clayton a day earlier.<\/p>\n
In the semifinals, an unranked USC squad upset Klahn and Thacher, 8-3.<\/p>\n
In order for Stanford to win its 19th NCAA championship, the doubles must improve.<\/p>\n
As the Sherwood Cup showed, the Cardinal\u2019s singles lineup can play with anyone in the nation, so \u201cthe doubles point could be the difference\u201d in advancing to the next round, according to Wire.<\/p>\n
Stanford opens its regular season against Sacramento State this Saturday. While picked to win the Big Sky Conference, the Hornets should not pose too much of a threat to the Cardinal, if Stanford plays at the same level it did at the Sherwood Cup.<\/p>\n
The match is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. at the Taube Tennis Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cardinal tennis is back. After a three-year rare downturn for the Stanford men\u2019s tennis program, the Cardinal announced its return to dominance at the Sherwood Cup, as sophomore Bradley Klahn captured the singles title and Klahn and sophomore Ryan Thacher reached the semifinals in doubles. Stanford Daily File Photo \u201cI think the team as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1816,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}