MALIBU, Calif. — Everyone loves an underdog.
The #21 Pepperdine Waves travel to Texas to face the #2 TCU Horned Frogs — the defending national champions — on Sunday. First serve is at 11 a.m. PT/1 p.m. central time. The match will be livestreamed via PlaySight; all pertinent links can be found on the men's tennis team's schedule page on pepperdinewaves.com.
MATCH 11: #21 Pepperdine (6-4) at #2 TCU (9-2) | Sunday, Feb. 23 | 11 a.m. PT | Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center | Fort Worth, Texas
Casual college sports fans might recognize TCU men's tennis coach David Roditi donning a jet-black cattleman cowboy hat as he patrols the sidelines.
With Roditi at the helm, the Horned Frogs have gradually ascended to the top of the sport. Over the last three years, TCU men's tennis has made two Final Fours, won three national team titles (two indoor, one outdoor), boast five All-Americans and currently have one of the best rosters in college tennis.
The current lineup has reigning NCAA doubles champions Lui Maxted and Pedro Vives, ATP top-400 star Jack Pinnington Jones atop the lineup and three top-25 singles players. Vives, the #2 singles player in the nation, plays at the second position behind Pinnington Jones, who is playing some of the best college tennis in the nation right now. The British junior doesn't shy away from the moment; in TCU's title run last spring, he went 6-0 atop the lineup and was named the NCAA Championships Most Outstanding Player. They're loaded.
TCU was the top team in the nation until this past Tuesday when Wake Forest outlasted the Horned Frogs 4-3 in an instant classic ITA National Indoor Championship match. Undoubtedly, Roditi's squad will want to give another one of TCU's massive home crowds plenty of reasons to cheer on Sunday.
However, the team TCU faces on Sunday can provide a different story of its own. The David vs. Goliath narrative is one of the most common ways that we talk about sports, and the Davids of Pepperdine men's tennis make for a compelling underdog story.
So far, the Pepperdine Waves have provided delightful counterprogramming to the Power-4 battles atop the sport. Despite starting the season unranked, the Waves' 6-1 upset of #9 Texas A&M provided a launchpad for this Pepperdine team, which rose to #21 in the latest ITA rankings this week. Head coach Adam Schaechterle's squad comes into this weekend fresh off a historic 4-2 upset at UCLA — Pepperdine's first win at the Los Angeles Tennis Center since 2006. True Pepperdine fans know anytime '06 is invoked around Malibu, the season is bound to be special.
How special is this season? Senior captain Linus Carlsson Halldin, who battled a slew of injuries throughout his college career, provided two storybook moments by clinching Pepperdine's last two wins. Right now, the senior from Sweden is one of the most reliable players in Pepperdine's singles lineup. He is a perfect 3-0 in three-setters this spring and won five of his last six matches at the third position.
The two players above Carlsson Halldin are Pepperdine's nationally ranked players: #76 Edward Winter and #53 Maxi Homberg. The one-time doubles partners give Pepperdine multiple NCAA singles qualifiers in the lineup for the first time since 2013. While Winter spent his fall playing the pro circuit, refining his groundstrokes and improving his serve, Homberg became the latest All-American in program history with a run to the Round of 16 at the NCAA Singles Championships. Homberg's final opponent? TCU's Lui Maxted.
However, the Waves' quartet of spring freshmen bolster the back of the lineup and have been instrumental in doubles play. Coming into the season with lofty expectations as the second-best recruiting class in the nation, Pepperdine freshmen Aleksa Pisaric, Lasse Poertner, David Fix and Hugh Winter appear to look the part.
Both Pisaric and Fix lead the freshmen with four singles wins apiece. While Pisaric had a breakout moment by clinching the Waves' Texas A&M upset, Fix has been quietly putting together a solid debut season at the sixth position, where he has a 4-3 record. At his best, the German freshman has given the Waves quick, straight-set wins against Power-4 opponents like LSU Texas A&M and USC — the latter of which helped Pepperdine go 2-0 on the Trojans last weekend.
While the freshmen's singles success has been admirable, the most impressive accomplishment from them might be how quickly they've meshed with each other in doubles. The team of Pisaric and Poertner hit the ground running, leading the team with an 8-1 record. They're on a team-best seven-match win streak, while Pepperdine's veteran team of #67 Carlsson Halldin and Homberg have won its last two matches. While Pisaric and Poertner have beaten up opponents at the third position, the duo has a knack for clinching the doubles point for Pepperdine, which has won seven of 10 doubles point opportunities this year.
This Sunday could be Pepperdine's toughest match of the season. Yet Schaechterle has never been shy about scheduling the nation's best teams: TCU is one of 16 postseason teams on Pepperdine's schedule, and the Horned Frogs are the fourth top-10 squad the Waves have played so far. Pepperdine has successfully played the role of David before. Now they'll have to do it again.
