Given Stanford’s near-success and improved results as of late, fans would have hoped that the men’s tennis team could have closed out its season with a win, but the Card dropped its final regular-season match to California on Saturday.

Despite challenging top-10 teams like No. 9 Southern California and No. 10 UCLA recently, No. 53 Stanford (8-16, 2-5 Pacific-10 Conference) struggled against No. 39 Cal on Senior Day, ultimately losing 5-1.

Although the score was not the 7-0 shutout that the Bears (14-9, 4-3) posted in March, Stanford surely would have liked to send off seniors Eric McKean and David Ryan with a score slightly better than the actual result.

Saturday’s dismal and cloudy weather suited the outcome of the match well. Due to predictions of rain later in the afternoon, the match commenced with singles play, which proved to be unfortunate for the Card, given the positive results the team has posted in doubles this season.

As play began, most of the first sets were extremely tight. However, the only Cardinal player able to pick up a set was freshman Richard Wire at the second singles spot. No. 73 Wire picked up the first, 6-3, against Cal’s Tyler Browne.

Of the remaining matches, four of those first sets were lost by margins of a mere two games. At the first, fourth and sixth singles positions, respectively, sophomore Matt Bruch, McKean and Ryan all dropped their opening sets with identical scores of 6-4. Sophomore Blake Muller also narrowly lost the first set, 7-5, when he made an unforced error on his forehand side.

Wire quickly blew through the next set, bageling his opponent in the second to give the Card its first point of the day. However, after this brief lead, the rest of the matches went in favor of the Bears.

Cal’s Kallim Stewart led Ryan 5-0 in the second before the senior managed to pick up one more game before falling 6-4, 6-1. Moments later, when a shot sailed wide, freshman Kevin Kaiser fell to Cal’s Ken Nakahara, 6-0, 6-2.

With the Card trailing 1-2, Muller found himself down a set and 3-5 in the second. After a relatively conservative point, a backhand from the sophomore ended up in the net to give the Bears a 3-1 edge.

Cal’s Pierre Mouillon clinched the match when he defeated Bruch in a tight, straight-set victory. After dropping the first set, Bruch took an early break in the second to go up 2-0. No. 32-ranked Mouillon battled back to even the score, and with Bruch leading 5-4 in the second, the Bear won the final three games to seal the fourth point and Cal’s victory.

After the outcome of the match had been decided, all eyes turned to Court 4, where McKean faced Daniel Sebescen, a gifted player in his own right. Last year, in the first round of the Pac-10 individual tournament, the senior from Yugoslavia stretched Bruch to three sets before falling to the Cardinal, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.

On Saturday, the Yugoslavian narrowly nabbed the first set against McKean before Stanford’s senior captain rallied back and won a 6-2 second set. However, once the superbreaker for the third set began, Sebescen began painting the lines; the Bear led 6-2 and then 9-3 before jamming McKean with a big serve on his forehand to close out the breaker, 10-5.

In a ceremony following the match to honor McKean and Ryan, the mood proved to be touching, yet the players appeared slightly disappointed about the close of the season. Because of Saturday’s loss, Stanford will likely not make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in recent history. If it was to have had any shot of earning a spot in the draw, the Card would have needed to upend the Bears, whose own tournament berth rested on Saturday’s outcome.

After a subpar dual-match season by Stanford’s standards, the Cardinal will now try to redeem itself at the Pac-10 Individual Tournament. Within the span of only a year, the squad has gone from a team that shared the Pac-10 title last year to one that went 2-5 in conference play this year. Two Stanford players faced each other in the singles finals in 2006, and the Card also brought home the invitational singles and doubles titles.

The team travels to Ojai, Calif., this Thursday through Sunday for the Pac-10 Tournament.