MALIBU, Calif. — Competing for NCAA Tournament bids for the first time this fall, the Pepperdine men’s tennis team will head west for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Southwest Regional Championships, held at the Kiwanis Tennis Center in Tempe, Ariz. from Oct. 16-21.
The top two singles finalists and the doubles champion will earn bids to the NCAA Tournament. The matches will not be livestreamed. If available, result links will be posted on the men’s tennis team’s schedule page on pepperdinewaves.com.
Pepperdine is sending six players to the tournament: David Fix, Photos Photiades, Aleksa Pisaric, Lasse Poertner, No. 90 Gustavo Ribeiro de Almeida and Hugh Winter. All six players will be in the singles and doubles draws.
In doubles, all three of Pepperdine’s teams have first-round byes. Winter and Photiades, the 7-seed, play against an opponent yet to be determined Saturday at 12:30 p.m. The 8-seeded team of Fix and Ribeiro de Almeida faces off against Leo von Bismarck and Andrei Crabel of UCLA on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. Lastly, the 9-seeded team of Pisaric and Poertner will play Saturday at 12:30 p.m. against an opponent yet to be determined.
In singles, Winter will face Ivaylo Simeonov of UC Riverside on Thursday at noon. Photiades will play in the second round against an opponent yet to be determined on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. The remaining matchups have not been determined.
Five of the six players are coming off playing in the Sherwood Intercollegiate Classic, where the Waves won 19 matches. Poertner was named the co-Champion of the tournament after going 8-0 collectively in singles and doubles. In his collegiate debut, Ribeiro de Almeida also posted a perfect record in singles play, going 3-0 with three routine straight-set wins.
The final weekend for Pepperdine to punch its tickets to the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championship will be Nov. 6-9. The Waves will compete at the ITA Division 1 Sectional Championship, held in Berkeley, Calif., plus the ITA Conference Masters Championship, held in San Diego, Calif. All schedule updates can be found on the men’s tennis team’s schedule page at pepperdinewaves.com.
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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