MALIBU, California – The #20 Pepperdine men's tennis program stays in-state this weekend, heading to Palo Alto to compete in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend with a chance to earn a bid to the 2023 ITA National Team Indoor Championships with a pair of wins.
Match 2: #20 Pepperdine (0-1) vs Texas A&M (0-1) | Sunday, January 29 | 10 a.m. PT | Taube Family Tennis Center | Palo Alto, Calif.
Match 3: #20 Pepperdine (0-1) vs #18 Stanford (2-1) OR Georgia Tech (5-0) | Monday, January 30 | 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. PT | Taube Family Tennis Center | Palo Alto, Calif.
COVERAGE
Stanford will be providing live video and stats throughout the weekend. There is one link for both video and stats, and that link can be found on PepperdineWaves.com.
SERIES HISTORY
Pepperdine holds a 9-5 lead in the all-time series against Texas A&M. The last neutral-site meeting happened in 2021, a 4-0 Aggies win also in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Six of Pepperdine's nine wins in the series have occurred in Malibu.
Pepperdine has won six of the last 10 meetings with Stanford, including four wins in a row from 2005 to 2008. Last spring, the two schools met for the first time since 2013, a 5-2 Stanford win in Palo Alto. In the previous road meeting, Pepperdine took down the Cardinal 4-3 in 2013.
The Waves are a perfect 6-0 against Georgia Tech all-time, but the schools have not met since 2002. All six meetings happened in Malibu.
SCOUTING THE WAVES
Pepperdine opened its 2023 spring season with a 4-3 defeat at UCLA on Saturday. The Waves dropped the doubles point on a tiebreak and had a chance to win the match with a pair of wins on courts five and six, but the Bruins shut the door on court five before
Robert Shelton (Lancaster, Penn.) took care of business on six. #94
Tim Zeitvogel (Baden-Baden, Germany) opened his spring with a ranked win, taking down UCLA's #89 Giacomo Revelli in straight sets.
Maxi Homberg (Freising, Germany) earned his first collegiate dual win, winning a three-set match against the Bruins in his debut.
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
Texas A&M opened the season ranked 23rd by the ITA, but dropped its season opener at San Diego on January 18, falling 4-3 in a tightly contested match. The Aggies have four singles players and a doubles pair ranked in the latest ITA individual rankings: Trey Hilderbrand (#43), Pierce Rollins (#44), Raphael Perot (#88), JC Roddick – nephew of tennis superstar Andy Roddick (#92) and Hilderbrand/Noah Schachter (#33).
Stanford has won two of its three matches to open the season, defeating West Coast Conference foes Saint Mary's and Santa Clara with an upset, non-conference loss at Cal sandwiched in between. The Cardinal have a pair of players in the ITA top-10 rankings, with Nishesh Basavareddy at #2 and Max Basing at #7. Basavareddy has yet to debut this spring for Stanford.
Georgia Tech has raced out to a 5-0 start in the spring, though the competition has been lesser as the Yellow Jackets have defeated Furman, Presbyterian twice, Wofford and Alabama State. One player is ranked by the ITA in singles – Andres Martin at #72. Martin defeated current Wave
Daniel De Jonge in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Singles Championship.
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