SARAH IRVIN
Staff Writer
Maybe it was the anticipation for the fall season to finally end, or maybe the players felt incomplete after sending part of the team to Ohio State while the rest stayed here. Whatever the case, the nationally-ranked men’s tennis team concluded its season Sunday with a bittersweet ending.
After putting on a magnificent performance in the ITA Regional last week, there was no encore for senior doubles partners Pedro Rico and Ivor Lovrak in the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Tennis Championships. Rico and Lovrak were defeated in the first round 8-6 by Boise State’s fourth-seed pair of Luke Shields and Thomas Schoeck. Shields and Schoeck went on to lose in the semifinals against top-seeded pair from Middle Tennessee, Marco Born and Andreas Siljestrom.
The Pepperdine duo did not fare well in the back draw either. Rico and Lovrak were defeated again by partners Dan Hanegby and Phil Charm from Brown University.
On the flip side, Rico was also an at-large pick into the singles competition. Rico was up against a tough opponent from the University of Georgia, No. 2-seed John Isner. After a hard-fought match, Rico fell 7-6, 6-7, 6-4. Pepperdine came out on top after the first round of the back draw. Rico quickly advanced after beating Raul Morant-Rivas from Texas A&M, Corpus Christi. The second round was not as easy for Rico, as he fell to Oklahoma State’s Daniel Byrnes.
Back in California, the remaining members competed in the Southern California Intercollegiate Championships. Freshmen Kyle Ganzer, Peter Luck and Troy Aiken, along with junior Richard Johnson and senior Kevin Borzenski, all competed in the qualifying rounds. Johnson was the lone Wave to make it into the tournament pool for singles but was joined by Borzenski to play in the doubles draw.
Johnson was up against UC Riverside’s Norman Tam in the first round. After stumbling in the second set, Johnson overtook Tam in the third to win the match. The momentum was eliminated in the second round as was Johnson. Jeremy Drean from UCLA triumphed over Johnson in straight sets.
The Waves ended the tournament on a much better note in doubles. Johnson and Borzenski soared over opponents in the first rounds of the doubles draw, landing in the quarterfinals with Boris Bakalov and Tom Jelsma from Azusa Pacific. After beating the pair from APU 8-3, the duo faced tough competition from a UCLA team. Johnson and Borzenski turned up the heat in the semifinals only to swelter 8-3 to Mathieu Dehaine and Aaron Yovan.
The Waves are done for the fall but will return to action in after the start of 2006.
11-10-2005