MALIBU, Calif. - No. 20 Pepperdine men's tennis is ready to embark on a long east-coast road trip, beginning tomorrow at No. 27 Columbia before battling No. 40 Harvard on Sunday morning.
 
The Waves have dropped their last two matches, coming against No. 15 UCLA and at No. 21 USC. It's been two weeks since that matchup against USC, when Edward Winter and Lasse Poertner earned singles victories for the Waves in the effort, as Pepperdine dropped the doubles point with the final two courts going to tiebreaks.
 
Winter was able to defeat Branko Djuric in straight sets at the number one position, and his performance helped him earn WCC Men's Tennis Singles Player of The Week on February 17. Poertner was also victorious via straight-set wins at the No. 3 position.
 
Pepperdine has seen Columbia four times, including in each of the last three seasons. The Waves are 2-2 all-time against the Lions but took the most recent matchup, 4-1, in Malibu last season. Columbia features three singles players ranked inside the top 100, including Sachin Palta (No. 66), Nicolas Kotzen (No. 36), and Michael Zheng (No. 6). The Lions feature a pair of doubles teams that rank highly in the ITA rankings. This week, Kotzen and Andrew Ena rank 53rd, while Thanaphat Boosarawongse and Aditya Govila are ranked 27th in the country.
 
The Waves also have a trio of singles players that are ranked, including Photos Photiades (No. 123), Aleksa Pisaric (No. 111), and Lasse Poertner (No. 101). The doubles team of Poertner and Pisaric ranks 75th in this week's ITA rankings.
 
The Waves are 13-4 all-time against Harvard, but Pepperdine has never played at Harvard. The Waves have taken five of the last seven meetings against the Black and Crimson. Harvard has three singles players slotted inside the top 85: Peter Benjamin Privara (No. 85), Nathan Blokhin (No. 75), and Rohan Murali (No. 57). The Crimson's doubles team of Masato Perera and Murali come in at No. 58 in this week's ITA rankings.
 
ABOUT PEPPERDINE MEN'S TENNIS
Pepperdine men's tennis has a longstanding tradition of success, highlighted by an NCAA Championship in 2006 which came 54 years after its first NAIA Championship in 1952. Robbie Weiss recorded the program's first NCAA singles championship in 1988 after the program saw doubles national championships in 1984 and 1985. 44-time WCC Champions, Pepperdine has reached 40 NCAA Tournaments and six NCAA Regionals in its history with 53 total All-Americans.
 
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