Men’s tennis drops two in Calif.

The No. 25 Gophers tennis team fell to 1-2 on the season after it dropped a pair of matches over the weekend to San Diego and Louisiana State.

Minnesota fell 5-2 to San Diego on Sunday and lost 4-0 on Monday to LSU in the Intercollegiate Kick-Off Weekend in Berkeley, Calif.

The No. 32 Tigers allowed the Gophers just one of nine sets in the six matches played in Monday’s sweep.

LSU’s Olivier Borsos — ranked No. 68 nationally — defeated the Gophers’ Phillip Arndt 6-2, 7-6 (3) at the first singles position.

At fifth singles, Tom Knights defeated Minnesota’s Michael Sicora 6-1, 6-3; and at sixth singles, James Tubervill squeaked out a 7-6 (3), 7-5 win against Mathieu Froment.

The Gophers won at No. 2 doubles when the No. 50 team of Rok Bonin and Julian Dehn defeated Roger Anderson and Stefan Szacinski 8-4. But the Tigers claimed the match’s lone doubles point with an 8-4 win at No. 1 doubles and a 9-8 (2) win at No. 3 doubles.

“They were very tough,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said in a release. “The guys came out with the right energy today. After a tough loss, they understood the opportunity and handled pressure situations well. It was a good win for us against a very talented Minnesota team.”

Both LSU and Minnesota had lost their first match of the tournament. While the Tigers appeared slightly overmatched against No. 13 California, the Gophers had their chances against No. 27 San Diego.

Minnesota eventually fell 5-2, however, in a four-hour marathon that featured three singles matches that lasted three sets.

Arndt won his singles match against Nikola Bubnic 6-4, 6-3, but he and partner Leandro Toledo fell 8-5 in their doubles match against Bubnic and Thibaut Visy.

Bonin defeated Clarke Spinosa 6-4, 6-4 at No. 3 singles, but Minnesota lost a trio of three-set matches at the fourth, fifth and sixth singles positions.

Fremont came the closest to victory after winning the first set 2-6, but Visy — ranked No. 61 in singles — dominated the second set 6-1 and won the third set in a tiebreaker.

Fremont’s loss came minutes after Dehn lost 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 at No. 4 singles — a match that clinched the Gophers’ first loss of the season.

San Diego won the doubles point when Spinosa and Victor Pugliese defeated Minnesota’s Eric Frueh and Sicora 8-6.

The Gophers travel to play another ranked team — No. 30 Louisville — Feb. 4 in Louisville, Ky.