ORLANDO, Fla. — Rattling off two wins on Thursday afternoon, men's tennis seniors Daniel De Jonge and Tim Zeitvogel earned All-American honors and reached the semifinals of the NCAA Doubles Tournament, held at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.
Due to weather delays earlier in the week, De Jonge (Vlissingen, Netherlands) and Zeitvogel (Baden-Baden, Germany) had to play two matches on Thursday. Yet despite the workload, the senior duo became the second doubles team under current head coach Adam Schaechterle to earn All-American status, joining the team of Adrian Oetzbach and Guy Den Ouden that achieved the feat in 2021. They are the seventh Pepperdine doubles team to reach the NCAA semifinals, plus they are the 50th and 51st All-Americans in program history.
The #64 Waves duo upset two top-25 doubles teams en route to the semifinals. In their closest match of the day, De Jonge and Zeitvogel solidified their All-American status with a 7-6 (7), 3-6, 10-6 win over Stanford's Nishesh Basavareddy and Arthur Fery.
Then in the quarterfinals, the seniors dispatched the nation's #14 team of Rafa Izquierdo Luque and Joseph Wayand of NC State in a 6-3, 6-2 win that never seemed close.
With the wins, the Pepperdine duo will face off with Ohio State's #16-ranked Andrew Lutschaunig and James Trotter on Friday at 11:30 a.m. PT/2:30 p.m. local time. The Buckeye duo beat Hunter Heck and Karlis Ozolins of Illinois 6-2, 6-7 (1), 10-8 on Thursday to reach the semifinals. Neither De Jonge nor Zeitvogel has ever crossed paths with the Buckeyes, who were the NCAA runners-up in this year's team tournament.
Pepperdine is the lone non-Power 5 institution alive in both the singles and doubles brackets. Should De Jonge and Zeitvogel win on Friday, they will face either Georgia Tech's #31-ranked duo of Andres Martin and Marcus McDaniel; or the 3-seed Cleeve Harper and Eliot Spizzirri from Texas.
RESULTS
#64 De Jonge/Zeitvogel def. #23 Basavareddy/Fery 7-6 (7), 3-6, 10-6
#64 De Jonge/Zeitvogel def. #14 Wayand/Izquierdo Luque 6-3, 6-2
NEXT UP: De Jonge and Zeitvogel will play Andrew Lutschaunig and James Trotter of Ohio State at 11:30 a.m. PT.
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