By Cheri Phillips
Staff Writer
“A fall into a ditch makes you wiser.”
The No. 6 men’s tennis team found itself in the ditch of this Chinese proverb last Friday afternoon after they were upset by No. 21 Duke, 4-3.
Instead of laying low, the Waves wised up and showed no mercy when they bounced back to slash through both No. 55 Clemson Monday and No. 27 University of Minnesota Tuesday by identical scores of 7-0.
“Overall it was an awesome team effort,” assistant coach Todd Doebler said. “From the start of the match, everyone came out confident and poised.”
The highlight of the week was on Tuesday, when the No. 1 player in the nation, Harsh Mankad, and Wave Al Garland, No. 3, stepped on the court to face one another. Garland dismantled Mankad in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, in front of a vocal crowd at Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center.
“He was a difficult guy to play, he made me work for every point,” Garland said. “I was getting frustrated because I felt like I was letting opportunities pass me by. But I felt like I played the big points well and that was the difference.”
Head coach Peter Smith agreed that his top player came up big on Tuesday afternoon.
“It was a tremendous tennis match featuring two of the top players at the collegiate level,” Smith said. “Al almost always finds a way to rise to the occasion and that was the case today.”
The Waves improved their record to 12-4 with their impressive win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
The doubles claimed all three matches, with only the No. 3 spot going to a tiebreaker. Adding to the win by Garland, No. 2 Stefan Suter defeated fellow Swiss national Thomas Haug, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, and No. 3 Steve Racioppi crushed Alexsey Zharinov, 6-4, 6-1.
“I have been struggling with my confidence for a few weeks,” Racioppi said. “Today I played like I used to play last year. I feel extremely high. The Duke match was a great reality check and motivator for us.”
The rest of the team members were also motivated to finish off their opponents with relative ease.
No. 4 Johan Berg defeated Manuel Lieveney, 6-2, 6-1, while No. 5 Diego Acuna downed Chris Wettergel. Sebastien Graeff took care of fiery freshman Avery Tiker, 6-2, 6-2.
“It was a great team effort,” Garland said. “A very good comeback from Friday’s defeat.”
After losing to Duke late last week, the Waves played a rebound match the following Monday. Pepperdine looked more confident, more in control and seemed to have gained its stride back in a 7-0 win over Clemson. The Tigers fell to 8-8 with the loss.
Suter took a break from singles play for the day, and teammate Graeff returned to the lineup at the No. 4 spot, making quick work of Clemson opponent Nathan Thompson, 6-1, 6-1.
As the game against Duke began, Pepperdine seemed to be in the driver’s seat, claiming the doubles point and two singles wins by Suter and Berg. The Waves were up 3-0.
But the Blue Devils came out to play and stunned a surprised Waves team by taking the rest of the four singles matches.
The match came down to the No. 3 singles spot between Calle Hansen and Jason Zimmerman, which was decided by a close tiebreaker that went to Zimmerman, 6-4, 7-6(6), and the match to the Blue Devils.
This weekend the Waves return to action in their own invitational, hosting Arizona State, Texas Christian and Washington. The first match starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday with TCU playing Washington and Pepperdine facing ASU following at 2 p.m. Sunday the winners of both games will play at 2 p.m. and the losers playing before at 10 a.m.
CAPTION: Photo by Leiola Pasciuta
DREAM ON: Pepperdine tennis player Stefan Suter shows off to the crowd with a no-look return at one of the matches from this past week.
March 21, 2002