Claremont, Calif. - The No. 67 Pacific men's tennis team fell in the quarterfinals of the 2016 West Coast Conference Tennis Championship Thursday, 4-2 to Portland, at Biszantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont.
No. 113 Sem Verbeek, the WCC Player of the Year, posted a straight-set win in singles to wrap his Pacific career on a 10-match win streak. The Tigers also took the doubles point, but fell to Portland for the second time this season.
At second doubles, Alex Giannini & Daniel Alameh posted a 6-3 win over Alex Wallace & Kent Andreasen. The No. 85 pairing of Verbeek & Jose Chamba downed Mike Pervolarakis & Mathieu Garcia, 6-3, to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead. The third doubles match of 3. Miguel Diaz & Bernardo Oliveira versus Felix Fan & Pierre Garcia went unfinished with Portland leading 4-3.
In singles, Verbeek wrapped up his match quickly, sweeping Pervolarakis, 6-3, 6-3, to move to 10-0 on the year against WCC competition.
But the Pilots answered back as Fan won his fifth singles match over Giannini, 6-2, 6-4 and Carlos Donat prevailed 6-3, 6-2, at sixth singles over Oliveira to even the match at 2-2.
The Pilots positioned themselves to take the match by posting first-set tie-breaker wins on three courts. In fourth singles, Wallace topped Diaz 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 and Mathieu Garcia clinched the match at second singles with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 win over Alameh.
At third singles, Chamba went unfinished against Pierre Garcia, with Garcia taking a first set tie-breaker 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, unfinished.
The Tigers fall to 14-13 overall and fall short of a third-straight WCC semifinal appearance.
Portland improves to 16-7 overall and will face top seed No. 30 San Diego on Friday.
Verbeek finished the 2015-16 campaign at 19-2 overall in singles and 15-5 in doubles. In his four years with the Tigers, he won 46 singles and 54 doubles matches.
Fellow senior Daniel Alameh finishes with 48 singles victories in four years, with 47 doubles wins.