SHUHEI MATSUO
Assistant Sports Editor
Sometimes losing is not bad, especially against top-ranked teams.
The 10th ranked Pepperdine men’s tennis team traveled to the Midwest last week and participated in the 16-team USTA/ITA National Men’s Team Indoor Championships at the Midtown Tennis Club in Chicago. Despite a 4-2 upset against No.-9 Notre Dame on Friday, the Waves fell to No.-1 Georgia 4-0 on Saturday and No.-4 Mississippi 4-2 on Sunday.
After playing three matches in this tournament, Pepperdine moved to 7-3 for the season.
Though Pepperdine dropped two out of three games in this tournament, Head Coach Adam Steinberg said he feels great about the trip.
“The atmosphere of the tournament was unreal,” he said. “It was so intense, and it was the NCAA-in-May atmosphere.”
He said this is one of his favorite tournaments because his players get to play against the best teams in the country in the great facilities with huge crowds watching them. And staying in downtown Chicago was awesome, he added.
“I thought we did really well,” Steinberg said. “For our team, it wasn’t great, but I thought a lot of positives came out of it.”
As the ranking predicted, Georgia dominated the field and defended its title when it swept No.-2 Ohio State 4-0 in Monday’s final. A year ago, it was Pepperdine who lost to Georgia 4-0 in the final of this tournament, but the Waves ended up beating the Bulldogs at the final match of the NCAA later in the season.
This year, Pepperdine may need to work harder to beat its rival Georgia to defend its NCAA title.
“We are not Georgia yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be in May,” Steinberg said. “I told the guys ‘we are not far,’ but they were better than us that day. They are so deep and so strong. But I think we can get there in May.”
Despite a couple of dominating losses by upper-ranked teams, it was a positive tournament for Pepperdine overall.
“It was awesome to play against those teams now, especially for the freshmen to see what we need to do to win the national championship and who we have to beat,” Steinberg said. “And they saw all the teams, and no surprises come in May.”
Echoing his coach, freshman player James Lemke had a positive comment about the weekend action in Chicago.
“It was good to play against top-ranked teams,” he said. “We got to see where we are at.”
Lemke and his doubles partner freshman Bassam Beidas were the only duo that won a match against Mississippi on Sunday. Gaining confidence from this valuable experience, Lemke said he knows what he and his teammates need to do to beat top-10 teams.
“Just practicing,” he said. “Everyone’s got things to work on.”
After facing three of the best teams in the nation, Pepperdine is 1-3 against top-10 schools for the campaign.
The Waves continue action away from Malibu with a challenging three-match road trip starting Friday. Pepperdine will travel to the East Coast and face No.-8 Virginia and No.-24 Wake Forest this weekend. The Waves come back to Southern California and play against local rival No.-4 UCLA on Wednesday.
02-22-2007
