MALIBU, California – The Pepperdine men's tennis program has a busy week coming up, hosting matches on both Wednesday and Thursday before participating in the UTR College Match Challenge: BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on Sunday.
Match 11: Pepperdine (5-5) vs #11 Columbia (8-1) | Wednesday, March 15 | 2 p.m. PT | Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center | Malibu, California
Match 12: Pepperdine (5-5) vs #30 Oklahoma State (11-3) | Thursday, March 16 | 2 p.m. PT | Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center | Malibu, California
Match 13: Pepperdine (5-5) vs #8 USC (8-3) | Sunday, March 19 | 10 a.m. PT | Indian Wells Tennis Garden | Indian Wells, California
COVERAGE
Wednesday and Thursday's matches will have live video and stats, and the links can be found on PepperdineWaves.com. Sunday's match will not have live video or stats. Scores will be updated periodically on Twitter at @PeppTennis.
ATTENDANCE
Admission is free to all home Pepperdine tennis matches at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center this season.
SERIES HISTORY
Pepperdine and Columbia have only met once, a 7-2 Pepperdine win in 1984.
Pepperdine is 2-3 all-time against Oklahoma State, though the Waves have won the last two meetings in 2021 and 2022. All five meetings have been held since 2015.
Pepperdine has won two of the last three meetings with USC, including a memorable 4-2 win over the #5 Trojans last February in Malibu. The schools have not played a neutral-site contest since 1998, a 4-1 Pepperdine victory.
SCOUTING THE WAVES
Pepperdine played nearly three hours of competitive tennis with Oklahoma last Saturday before inclement weather forced the match to be halted and eventually declared a no-contest. No completed results from the match will officially count, though
Linus Carlsson Halldin recorded a victory in the first dual singles action of his collegiate career.
Daniel De Jonge is ranked 65th by the ITA in singles, while he and
Tim Zeitvogel are ranked 38th in doubles.
Maxi Homberg and
Eero Vasa lead the Waves with five doubles wins, while Homberg is the team leader in singles wins with six.
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
Columbia has won eight consecutive matches after dropping its season opener, recording top-15 wins against then-#14 Harvard and then-#12 Northwestern. Most recently, the Lions defeated West Coast Conference foe Santa Clara 4-3 in the Bay Area on Saturday. Three singles players and one doubles pair are ranked by the ITA: #16 Michael Zheng, #59 Roko Horvat, #75 Max Westphal and #25 Westphal/Theo Winegar.
Oklahoma State has won six of its last seven matches after dropping a pair of contests in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in January. Of the Cowboys' 11 victories, five have come in shutout fashion while four have been of the 4-3 variety. Most recently, Oklahoma State defeated UCF 5-2 on March 10. The Cowboys are 9-0 at home but just 2-3 away from Stillwater. Former LMU Lion Isaac Becroft is ranked 108th by the ITA in singles.
USC has been battled tested throughout the spring, defeating heavyweights such as Florida, Georgia and North Carolina while also defeating crosstown rival UCLA twice. The Trojans have competed just once since February 19, a 4-0 win over UCLA on March 1. Three singles players and a doubles pair are ranked by the ITA: #24 Peter Makk, #33 Stefan Dostanic, #113 Wojtek Marek and #17 Dostanic/Bradley Frye.
FOLLOW
Follow @PeppTennis on Facebook and Twitter for immediate updates, results and more. Go to pepperdinewaves.com for all information, releases and schedules.
