Pacific Coast Doubles Championship
Dates: March 2-4
Location: La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club - La Jolla, Calif.

Boston College at
UC Irvine (2-6)
Date: Monday, March 5
Time: 1:00 p.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium – Irvine, Calif.

Loyola Marymount at
UC Irvine (2-6)
Date: Wednesday, March 7
Time: 9:00 a.m. (PST)
Location: Newport Beach Tennis Club – Newport Beach, Calif.

Villanova at
UC Irvine (2-6)
Date: Wednesday, March 7
Time: 2:00 p.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium – Irvine, Calif.

Boston at
UC Irvine (2-6)
Date: Friday, March 9
Time: 1:00 p.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium – Irvine, Calif.

UC Irvine Match Notes  | Pacific Coast Doubles Championship Information

The Anteaters take a break from dual-match competition to compete at the Pacific Coast Doubles Championship in La Jolla. The four-day tournament will be held March 1-4.

UCI then returns to Anteater Tennis Stadium to begin a nine game homestand that stretches from March 5-16.

The 'Eaters play four matches in five days as it hosts Boston College at 1 p.m. Monday, March 6, before entertaining Loyola Marymount and Villanova in a doubleheader beginning at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, March 7. The LMU game will be played down the road at Newport Beach Tennis Club. UCI concludes its busy week with a game against Boston Friday, March 9 at 1 p.m.

TOP 10 HITS
• The 'Eaters earned their first win against a Division I opponent last week after defeating San Francisco, 4-3.  
• Junior Luis Lopez filled in at No. 1 singles last weekend and won each of his singles matches against San Francisco and Pacific.
• Luca Marquard defeated USF's Joenhagen in three sets, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, to clinch the match for UCI.
• Lopez teamed up Daniel Gealer in No. 2 doubles against the Dons as the duo won, 6-3.
• Gealer earned his second dual-match win of the season with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Pacific's Mikayel Khachatryan.
• Lopez leads the 'Eaters with four dual-match wins.
• Senior Sebastian Heim earned an ITA preseason ranking of No. 114.
• Heim has 44 career dual-match wins, good for 33^rd all-time. He needs at least 50 wins to crack in to UCI's top-25 all-time dual-match wins.
• UCI's top player Sebastian Heim has only seen action in one match this season due to injury.
• Head coach Mike Saunders is in his third year at the helm and boasts a 27-31 career record at UCI.

LAST TIME OUT
UCI split a pair of matches in a trip to northern California. The Anteaters pulled out a 4-3 win over San Francisco on Friday. Luca Marquard's 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 win in No. 2 singles clinched the match while Luis Lopez won at No. 1 singles and Vatsal Bajpai and Bruce Man-Son-Hing earned victories on courts four and six, respectively. UCI dropped the doubles point but the duo of Lope and Daniel Gealer won in No. 2 doubles, 6-3.

UCI could not overcome Pacific on Saturday, falling, 4-2. Junior Luis Lopez and freshman Daniel Gealer highlighted the day for the Anteaters as they each won their respective singles matches. In the top spot, Lopez came from behind to defeat the Tigers' Chinamo by a score of 0-6, 6-4, 7-6. Gealer also earned a win for the 'Eaters at No. 5 singles, 6-4, 6-1.

PAC COAST DOUBLES
The 129^th annual Pacific Coast Men's Doubles Championship will be held at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. A few matches will be played Thursday, however, all of UCI's doubles teams will begin Friday. There will be three rounds of play on Friday using a shortened match format (8-game Pro Set).

On Saturday and Sunday the match format will be the best of two of three sets with Coman Tiebreakers being played at 6-6.

Four of UC Irvine's doubles teams will begin play on Friday in the round of 128. Here are the Anteater tandems entered this weekend and the time of their first scheduled match:
Vatsal Bajpai/Bruce Man-Son-Hing – 8:00 a.m.
Daniel Gealer/Luis Lopez – 8:45 a.m.
Mason Hansen/Luca Marquard – 9:00 a.m.
Antoine Barthe/Takeru Watanabe – 9:45 a.m.

VERSUS THE OPPONENTS
Boston College (5-3) will be participating in the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships before facing the 'Eaters Monday. Most recently, the Eagles fell to Brown, 4-2, and defeated Bentley, 6-1. Last season, UCI earned a 4-3 victory over BC and maintains a 4-0 advantage in the all-time series.

LMU (6-2) will host Northern Arizona before making its way to Irvine. The Lions picked up wins against Nevada, 7-0, and Cal Poly, 5-2, last weekend. UCI and LMU last met in 2016 with the 'Eaters earning a 4-2 win. UCI leads the all-time series 8-4.

Villanova is 4-4 overall and makes its way to the west coast to compete in the Pacific Coast Doubles Championship as well as play matches against UC San Diego, Boise State and Concordia (Irvine) before playing the Anteaters. Last season, UCI earned 6-1 win over the Wildcats to take 2-0 advantage in the all-time series.

Boston (6-5) travels to California for four games including matches against Concordia (Irvine), UC Riverside, UC San Diego and UC Irvine. UCI will be the last stop on the trip for the Terriers. This will be the first meeting between BU and the 'Eaters.

LOPEZ LEADS
Junior Luis Lopez has filled in for an injured Sebatian Heim at No. 1 singles in each of the last two matches. Lopez earned victories in both of those contests as he stepped up to defeat USF's Zincirli, 6-4, 7-5, and Pacific's Tadiwa Chinamo, 6-0, 4-6, 7-6. He currently leads the 'Eaters in singles with four dual-match wins. Earlier this season, he defeated No. 8 USC's Laurens Verboven, 7-6 (5), 2-6, 1-0 (12-10) at No. 3 singles.

ON THE DOUBLE
Currently the pair of Luis Lopez and Daniel Gealer as well as the duo of Vatsal Bajpai and Bruce Man-Son-Hing each have collected two doubles wins this season. Lopez and Gealer recently earned a win at the No. 2 spot against San Francisco, 6-3.

SUMMER HOMEWORK
Junior Luis Lopez competed in the 2017 ITA Summer Circuit where he won three of six Southern California tournaments to advance to the ITA National Summer Championships.

GET TO KNOW THE 'EATERS
UC Irvine returns six players and welcomes three newcomers, including one freshman and two transfers. Sophomore Daniel Gealer comes to Irvine from UCLA, while junior Sasha Krasnov spent the past two years at Cerritos College. Antoine Barthe is the only true freshman in the mix, hailing from Rueil-Malmaison, France.

Five of the nine Anteaters on the roster are California natives, with the remaining four players are international products. Heim and Marquard are natives of Germany while Barthe comes from France and Krasnov is a product of Ukraine.

UP NEXT
UC Irvine will continue its busy homestand with a doubleheader against Idaho (9 a.m.) and Lehigh (2 p.m.) March 13 at Anteater Tennis Stadium.