MALIBU, Calif. - The Pepperdine men's tennis team heads to the Pacific Northwest for a pair of matches against Washington and Oregon. The Waves are coming off a gutsy 4-2 win against South Alabama at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in Gainesville, and look to take that momentum into the rest of the season.

Notes

DUAL MATCH 4: Pepperdine vs Washington | 4 p.m. | Friday, Februray 2 at the Nordstrom Tennis Center in Seattle, Wash.

DUAL MATCH 5: Pepperdine vs Oregon | 1 p.m. | Sunday, February 4 at the Student Tennis Center in Eugene, Ore.

LOOKING AHEAD: After the trip to the PNW, the Waves head down South for matches against Alabama (2/9) and #15 Mississippi State (2/11).

OPPONENT NOTES: The teams competing against the Waves this weekend will be Washington and Oregon, a team receiving votes in the Oracle/ITA national rankings. Pepperdine has faced off against Washington 15 times, winning 11 of the matches. The Waves have won eight of the last nine meetings, including last year's matchup, which they won, 4-3. The Huskies are 2-1 so far this year. The Waves have faced the Ducks only twice, winning both times, the last coming in 2015, which the Waves won 4-3.The Ducks are 3-2 this year.

LAST WEEK: The Waves traveled to Gainesville, Fla. for the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. They faced off against South Florida first, fighting hard through the entire match, taking the doubles point and two singles matches, falling 4-3. On Sunday, they defeated South Alabama in dramatic fashion after six and a half hours of tennis. Pepperdine entered singles with the deficit, but he Waves bounced back early, winning four of six matches, and being ahead in the lone match that didn't finish.Uspensky rallied back from a tiebreak loss in the first set to defeat Clement Marzol of the Jaguars 6-4, 6-2 in the final two sets. Dane Esses bested Loic Cloes 7-6 (4), 6-0 and the Waves had a 2-2 tie going with three matches left in action. Freshman Yusuf Khamis had the most exciting match of the day, winning his first set, 6-4, then dropping his second set before coming back in the third set to force a tiebreak, which he won in an extended 8-6 tiebreak. Nicholas Baez then picked up the clincher as he put down Santiago di Lorento 6-3, 7-5 to earn Pepperdine the outstanding 4-2 win.

ROSTER: The Waves welcome one more to their roster for the Spring season. Yusuf Khamis joins the team as a freshman from Cairo, Egypt. He currently has an ITF Juniors Ranking of 197. Returning for the spring, the Waves have two seniors (Pane, Iamachkine), four juniors (Uspensky, Baez, Sborowitz, Garapedian) and one sophomore (Esses). Joining Khamis as newcomers to the squad are three other freshmen (Mendelsohn, Berdusco, Galvao).

FALL 2017: The Waves competed in six tournaments during the fall, with the highlight being the ITA Regionals. Pedro Iamachkine and Lautaro Pane took second place in the doubles draw, the best finish for the Waves. In their run to the final match, Pane and Iamachkine defeated two teams from WCC rival San Diego, as well as pairs from UC Santa Barbara and perennial powerhouse USC. The pair's strongest victory was against the team of Jake Devine and Thibault Forget of USC, which they won, 8-5.

FERREIRA: Marcelo Ferreira enters his fifth season as head coach of the Pepperdine men's tennis team in 2017-18. After serving as the Waves' associate head coach in 2013-14, he was elevated to head coach in July 2014. Ferreira is now the 14th head coach in the program's storied history, dating back to the 1940s. His record after four seasons at the helm of the squad is 58-41.

#PURPOSE: The Pepperdine University Department of Athletics is committed to Christian values, to the academic well-being of all of our student-athletes and to competing for championships. We prepare students for success by challenging them to think differently - find your purpose, serve others and lead by example. The Competing with Purpose campaign highlights the commitment to our core values that student-athletes, coaches and staff dedicate themselves to daily. Competing with Purpose provides the foundation on which champions are built.

WAVES IN THE PROS: Pepperdine has sent its fair share of student-athletes into the pro circuit. Most recently, Sebastian Fanselow won the Claremont Club Pro Classic, defeating UCLA standout Evan Zhu, a competitor that was on an eight-match winning streak, in three sets. Alex Sarkissian won the Silex Men's $15,000 Futures tournament in Vancouver in the summer of 2014. He went on to reach the semifinals of the US Open's inaugural American Collegiate Invitational. Robert Lindstedt, 1998 All-American and NCAA Doubles Championship finalist, has reached as high as #3 in the world doubles rankings. He won the doubles draw at the 2014 Australian Open and is a three-time Wimbledon finalist. Andre Begemann, member of the 2006 NCAA Championship-winning squad, can also be found playing on the pro tour, as can 2012 graduate Alex Llompart.

ABOUT PEPPERDINE: Pepperdine boasts a one-of-a-kind athletic department with unprecedented success for a school of its size. The Waves have won NCAA Division I Championships in five different men's sports — one of just 18 schools to have accomplished this feat — and nine overall. Of this elite group, Pepperdine has the smallest undergraduate enrollment, is the only school without football and is the only university that has not been affiliated with a "major" conference. The Waves have won a total of 25 team or individual national championships in their history. Pepperdine has also earned the Division I-AAA All-Sports Trophy, an award based on postseason success that's given to the top non-football school, three times (most recently in 2011-12). Located in scenic Malibu, Calif., the university overlooks the Pacific Ocean and its campus and athletic facilities are regularly voted among the nation's most beautiful. Pepperdine, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, ranks No. 46 overall on U.S. News and World Report's list of America's best colleges.