Shuhei Matsuo
Assistant Sports Editor
Eight months after the glory of winning the national championship, the Pepperdine men’s tennis team begins a new journey Friday for another national championship. However, the 2007 campaign opens without some of the team’s top players.
“[Losing four players] took away a lot of experience from us,” assistant coach Per Nilsson said. “The new players are going to have to follow them quick.”
While the 2006 season’s top three players — Scott Doerner, Pedro Rico and Ivor Lovrak — left the team after their graduation, Pepperdine welcomed three new Waves for its 2007 campaign. Freshmen James Lemke, Bassam Beidas and Mahmound Kamel joined the team at the beginning of the month and competed in last weekend’s Sherwood Collegiate Cup at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.
Losing four players from the past season’s squad may be the biggest challenge for the new campaign, but the primary goal remains the same: winning the national championship. The 2006 champions do not need a year to fill out the space those graduated players may have made.
“Steiny (Head Coach Adam Steinberg) doesn’t believe in the term rebuilding,” said Kevin Borzenski, another player who graduated after the national championship this past year. “It’s hard to replace the four guys we lost simply, because we are a team and family. But those new guys will adjust to the college level tennis and be on the same page.”
Omar Altmann echoed his former teammate.
“Of course it’s tough to lose the guys who built the team,” the sophomore said. “But we have a really good team with three freshmen. Now it’s our time to step it up and win again.”
As a freshman, Altmann played the team’s No.-6 position and contributed to a number of team victories throughout the 2006 campaign. He was the first Wave to earn a point during the 2006 NCAA Championship match against Georgia.
Being a part of the 2006 champion team, Altmann is aware of the amount of work that is required to capture a national championship trophy.
“Everyone doesn’t expect to win the title, but we know how to get there,” Altmann said. “We want to show them we can do it.”
This season, Pepperdine is off to a new start, ranked 10th nationally. Considering last year’s squad was ranked No. 4 before it began the season with an upset over Virginia, the nation’s No. 1 at the time, this season’s team has a possibility of climbing up the ranking ladder to the top again, especially with those talented newcomers, Nilsson said.
“We are really excited about the new season with those freshman players,” Nilsson said. “It’s been unreal. They are so hungry.”
All three freshmen are from different countries and recently came to Pepperdine. Lemke just graduated from high school in Melbourne, Australia, in December and joined the Waves this week. During the weekend’s tournament, he showed some solid performances including an upset against No.-18 ranked Mathieu Dehaine of UCLA during the second round. He made it to the top four, but fell to Southern California’s Dejan Cvetkovic in the semifinal round.
Two other freshmen – Beidas from Egypt and Kamel from France – also joined the squad this past week. Since these freshmen have been with the team for just a week, Nilsson was worried about the chemistry among players on the team, he said. But these “unreal” freshmen have exceeded their coach’s expectations.
“This past week has been amazing. There is so much excitement in everything that we do,” Nilsson said. “I think this season is going to be really fun. We are not going to go 36-2 but we are going to have some good results.”
The Waves open their season Friday on the road against Illinois followed by a Sunday’s match against Northwestern.
01-18-2007
