MALIBU, Calif. — Hosting its third consecutive top-10 opponent, the Pepperdine men's tennis team will face off against the #2 Texas Christian University Horned Frogs at Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center on Sunday at 3 p.m.
Sunday's match is the second half of a doubleheader with the women's team, which hosts #12 California at 11 a.m. All matches will be live-streamed via PlaySight, and admission to Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center is free to the public. Live stream and live stat links can be found on the men's tennis team's schedule page at pepperdinewaves.com.
MATCH 14: #40 Pepperdine (5-8) vs. #2 TCU (13-1) | Sunday, March 17 | 3 p.m. | Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center | Malibu, Calif.
SCOUTING THE WAVES
Coming off back-to-back defeats to top-10 Ivy League teams, the #40 Waves are searching for an elusive win over a top-10 team this Sunday against #2 TCU. This year's Pepperdine squad has been tested by playing seven nationally ranked opponents in a row heading into this weekend, and while the Waves' record might not show it, the team has made considerable progress as the team reaches the end of non-conference play.
Winners of four of its last five doubles points, Pepperdine's doubles team has gotten a lift from George Davis and Linus Carlsson Halldin, who carry a four-match win streak into Sunday's match. Playing at the first position for the first time this season, the duo picked up a 6-3 win yesterday over Harvard's Cooper Williams and Ronan Jachuck. Earlier this week, the pair upset #22 Max Westphal and Nicolas Kotzen of Columbia with a 6-3 win, piecing together a solid case for a spot in the next Intercollegiate Tennis Association doubles rankings.
Elsewhere in doubles, Pietro Fellin and Edward Winter have done damage at the third position. The pair went 2-0 against Yale and Columbia earlier this week with a doubles-point-clinching 7-5 win over Columbia's Alex Kotzen and Henry Ruger on Wednesday.
In singles, #24 Winter is Pepperdine's lone ranked doubles player. Outside of the battle-tested true freshman at the top of the lineup, Fellin has a two-match win streak at the second and third positions and is tied with Maxi Homberg with six singles wins this spring. However, Pepperdine has been able to flex its depth with the back of the lineup; all told, the fourth through six positions have been responsible for 18 singles wins this spring.
SCOUTING THE HORNED FROGS
With a 13-1 record and wins in their last four matches, the TCU Horned Frogs have made their case as the nation's second-best team behind Ohio State — the team that beat TCU in the ITA Indoor National Championships last month. Sunday's match at Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center is the Horned Frogs' third and final match in Southern California before beginning Big 12 play next week.
Predictably, TCU has gotten everyone's best shot. Earlier this week, the Horned Frogs beat UCLA and USC 4-3 albeit in different fashions: TCU quickly won the match with a 4-0 sweep against UCLA before the coaches agreed to play out the remaining singles matches, but against USC, the Horned Frogs survived a scare thanks to Duncan Chan's match-clinching 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 win at the sixth position.
In doubles, TCU has two nationally ranked teams in #2 Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives, plus #40 Chan and Lui Maxted. Additionally, TCU has five nationally ranked singles players: #10 Jack Pinnington, #11 Jake Fearnley, #35 Pedro Vives, #53 Sebastian Gorzny, and #87 Maxted. Pinnington, the singles runner-up at the 2023 ITA National Fall Championships, has an 8-2 record at the first and second positions while Fearnley has a stellar 9-1 record at the first position. While TCU does have talent, the squad isn't particularly deep; in dual-match play, only six players have played in at least three matches.
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