After pulling out a close victory on Friday against No. 36 Arizona, the Stanford men’s tennis team fell in the same fashion on Saturday to No. 26 Arizona State. The No. 32 Cardinal left the desert with a split and its record now standing at 5-6 on the season.

On Friday against the Wildcats, the doubles point came down to three close matches. The No. 48 ranked Arizona team of Claudio Christen and Jay Goldman defeated junior Blake Muller and freshman Alex Clayton at No. 1 doubles, 9-7. Bruno Alcala and Ravid Hazi beat junior Matt Bruch and freshman Ted Kelly in a tiebreaker at No. 2 doubles, 9-8 (4). The same went for freshman Greg Hirshman and sophomore Richard Wire at No. 3 doubles, but they were able to prevent the Arizona sweep by winning 9-8 (8).

With Arizona up 1-0, Stanford quickly fought back with victories at No. 1 and No. 2 singles. Clayton beat Goldman at No. 1, 7-5, 6-3 and Bruch defeated Christen at No. 2, 6-4, 6-3. The next two matches went to Arizona, however, as Wire and senior Phil Kao both lost straight set matches at the No. 3 and No. 5 singles spots, respectively.

With the Wildcats ahead, 3-2, Muller came back from a set down to cruise to victory against Alcala at No. 4 singles, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

For the second time this season, the match was up to freshman Greg Hirshman at the No. 6 spot. Hirshman again delivered as he did two weeks ago, battling back from a second set loss to pull out the third set and secure the victory for Stanford, 4-3.

“We let the doubles point slip away,” said head coach John Whitlinger. “But the guys put it behind them and went out and won four singles matches, which is not an easy thing to do on the road.

“I’ll take a 4-3 win at Arizona any day.”

The Cardinal was not as fortunate on Saturday, losing a very close match to Arizona State, 4-3. The Sun Devils won the doubles point with victories at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles. Clayton and Bruch, however, again swept through their opponents at No. 1 and 2 singles, respectively. Clayton defeated Matt Brooklyn 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 for his team-leading 19th singles victory of the season and Brooklyn’s first singles loss this year. Bruch downed Andres Arango, 6-1, 6-3, while Kao bounced back from Friday’s loss to beat Arizona State’s Wes Miller at No. 5 singles for Stanford’s third point.

Those were all the points the Cardinal would get, however, as Wire, Muller, and Hirshman fell at No. 3, 4, and 6 singles, respectively. Stanford’s record is now 5-6, while Arizona is 10-3 and Arizona State improved to 9-0 on the season.

“We got away with [losing the doubles point] on Friday, but not on Saturday,” Whitlinger said.

“It was a great effort by Phil Kao,” he continued. “He has struggled a bit this year. He came back from [a loss Friday]. I give him a lot of credit.

“This trip is always one of the tougher trips of the year,” Whitlinger said. “Overall the guys fought hard and competed well.”

Stanford will take two weeks off for finals before returning to the court during Spring Break. The Cardinal plays three home matches during the break: a non-conference match against Brown University on March 24 and then a rematch against the Arizona schools on March 28 and 29 in what will be the Pac-10 openers for the teams.

“The guys are pretty motivated for Arizona State,” Whitlinger said. “[Although] we don’t want to look past Brown, the guys have Arizona State circled on their calendar.”