Men's Tennis Off to California for Pacific Coast Doubles Championship, Dual with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

Bucknell at West Coast Doubles Championship
When: Friday, Feb. 28-Sunday, March 2
Where: La Jolla Beach Tennis Club, La Jolla, Calif.
DRAWS

Bucknell (7-2) at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (5-2)
When: Sunday, March 2, 1 p.m. ET
Where: Biszantz Family Tennis Center, Claremont, Calif.
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Bucknell at a Glance

Coming off a pair of wins over Villanova and Saint Joseph's last weekend, the Bison head west to compete in the West Coast Doubles Championship in La Jolla, Calif., followed by a dual match with Division III power Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Sunday morning.
Three doubles teams will be in action in La Jolla: Amar Tahirovic/Brendan McDonald, Adam Stavrakas/Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega, and Nelson Alapi/Liam Kilmer. A total of 86 pairs are entered, with the action continuing through Sunday. This will be a homecoming for the freshman Alapi, who is a San Diego native
The Bison will see plenty of quality competition, with UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, and San Diego State headlining a stacked field. This tournament started in 1890 and is one of the five oldest tennis events in the world. Past winners include Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder, Bobby Riggs, Pancho Segura, Don Budge, Tony Trabert, Stan Smith, Bob Lutz, Arthur Ashe, Dennis Ralston and John McEnroe.
The Bison cruised to a 6-1 away win over Villanova last Saturday before clipping Saint Joe's 4-3 at the Central PA Tennis Center on Sunday.
Bucknell has captured all five Patriot League Player of the Week Awards this spring. Stavrakas just won his third honor of the season earlier this week, and Tahirovic has the other two.
Bucknell is now 107-35 (.754) in singles and 39-28 (.582) in doubles over the full season.
Stavrakas (20-3) and Tahirovic (18-2) have been dominant at the top of the singles lineup. They have alternated playing No. 1 and 2 singles and are a combined 16-0 in dual matches in the top two spots in the lineup.
Alapi (12-7), Kilmer (11-2), and McDonald (11-6) have also reached double-digit wins.
McDonald and Tahirovic are 6-3 in dual matches at No. 1 doubles and are 11-5 together over the full season. McDonald's total doubles mark of 15-6 is the best on the team.
Tahirovic is now 68-17 in singles in his career. The 68 wins are seventh-most in program history, and he needs two more to catch Evan Zimmer for the No. 6 spot.
Bucknell's 4-1 win over Army on Feb. 1 snapped a 34-match losing streak to the Black Knights dating back to 1974.
The highlight of the fall was Bucknell's pair of wins at the Patriot League ITA Conference Masters qualifier at West Point. The tournament served as a mini Patriot League individual championship, with each team entering two singles players and one doubles unit. Tahirovic won a three-set match from teammate Stavrakas in the singles final, and Tahirovic and McDonald won the doubles title.
Those wins advanced them to the ITA Conference Masters event in Georgia, where top players from every Division I conference had a chance to automatically qualify for the NCAA Individual Championships. After two straight-set wins, Tahirovic lost to Notre Dame's Sebastian Dominko in the quarterfinals, leaving him just one win shy of the NCAA bid. Tahirovic and McDonald won their opening-round doubles match before getting eliminated by the top seed from Mississippi State.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps at a Glance/Series History

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps is the second-ranked team in the ITA Division III rankings, and the Stags are likely to move up after beating No. 1 Chicago 4-3 in the finals of the ITA Indoor Championships on Sunday in St. Peter, Minn.
CMS is now 5-2 in duals this spring after beating three ranked teams at ITA Indoors.
Advik Mareedu is the No. 1 ranked singles player in Division III, and Warren Pham is ranked 14th and Anirudh Gupta is 20th. Pham went 6-0 in Minnesota, including the match-clincher at No. 4 singles against Chicago.
Mareedu is 14-0 in singles and has dropped only one set all season, that coming in a tiebreaker.
CMS started the spring season with 4-3 losses to Concordia and Point Loma, but the Stags have won five straight since then, including a 5-2 win over Division I UC Riverside.
This will be the first-ever meeting between the Bison and Stags.

Next Up

Bucknell heads to Richmond, Va., for two matches against Richmond and Longwood on Saturday, March 8. The Bison will then continue south into North Carolina for Spring Break matches against UNC Greensboro, Elon, and Davidson.

Men's Tennis Off to California for Pacific Coast Doubles Championship, Dual with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

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Players Mentioned

Nelson Alapi

Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega

Liam Kilmer

Brendan McDonald

Adam Stavrakas

Amar Tahirovic

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