Slow start to the season

The Portland State men’s tennis team kicked off their 2012 campaign with two defeats last weekend. After their home game against Seattle University got canceled due to inclement weather, the Vikings took on Pac-12 team Oregon in Eugene on Friday and lost 7-0.

On Sunday, Portland State took on Big Sky rivals Montana State at home in Vancouver, Wash., but went down 6-1 to the Bobcats. However, this was not a conference game. With these results, the Vikings fall to a 0-2 record overall this season.

“It was really good for our guys to get out here and play well against a conference opponent in a non-conference match this early in the season,” head coach Jay Sterling said in a statement. “We have a young team this year and it just proves to them that they can compete in this conference.”

Before the start of the season, the tennis program hired a full time assistant coach in Angelo Niculescu, a former University of South Carolina player.

In the first game on Friday, the Vikings started off with defeats in all three doubles games, thereby losing the doubles point. The team of junior Nick Fracchia and junior Zach Lubek came the closest, losing 8-4 to their Pac-12 opponents.

Portland State put up some fight at the number one singles position. Redshirt sophomore Roman Margoulis won his first set against Oregon’s Robin Cambier 6-4. However, Cambier reversed the score in the second set, winning it 6-4. In the deciding tiebreaker, Cambier went on to win the contest 10-4 and the match.

In each of the other five singles matches, the Vikings could only win one game in the two sets. All the five players lost their two sets with either a 6-0 or a 6-1 scoreline. With this result, Oregon started their season with a win.

Playing at the Club Green Meadows on Sunday, Portland State came within a few game games of winning the doubles point and forced three singles games into tiebreakers in addition to their solitary singles win.

“We lost to Montana State 5-2 last spring but I thought that we were much closer to actually winning the match today,” Sterling said. “We were in more matches and forced more third set tiebreakers.”

In the first doubles match, the Vikings pair of Margoulis and sophomore Abhinav Mishra came within a single break of winning their match. They lost 8-6 to Montana State’s Diego Contreras and Alberto Fuentes.

At number two in the doubles contests, Portland State’s Nick Fracchia and Lubek won their game in a tie-breaker 8-7 (7-3). However, in the third and deciding doubles match, the freshman pair of Alec Marx and Nate Chart lost 8-2 to their opponents. Thus, the Vikings lost the doubles point.

Portland State continued their momentum in the singles competition as Margoulis won his game at the number one singles spot in straight sets 6-0, 6-0. However, this was the only win of the day for the Vikings.

Mishra, Marx and Lubek came close when they were able to stretch their matches to the third set at singles lines two, three and five respectively. However they all succumbed in the third and final set and lost the point.

With this result, Portland State have a 0-2 record overall while Montana State are level at 1-1. The Vikings play Utah State next on Feb. 4 and begin their conference season against Idaho State on Feb. 5.