Men's tennis awaits selection Wednesday


By Roman Veytsman
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, May 5, 2004

After fairing well in the Pac-10 Championships, the Arizona men's tennis team will sit in front of the television and wait for the first and second round draws to be announced on ESPNews.

The Wildcats gained three spots in the last rankings to move up to No. 21 in the nation, tying their season high. The top 16 teams according to the committee will host the regionals.

"We don't know exactly what to expect, but we know that wherever we go, we believe that we have a good chance to get to the Sweet 16," said assistant coach Tad Berkowitz.

Arizona finished the season fourth in the Pacific 10 Conference behind No. 3 Southern California, No. 4 UCLA and No. 10 Stanford. Two players reached 20 wins on the season, as sophomore Roger Matalonga earned 23 wins, tying him with Stephen Capriati for the most wins by an Arizona player, and junior Paul Warkentin won 20 games for the second time in his career (he won 20 games for Ohio State his freshman year.) Matalonga also moved up four spots to No. 80 in the nation, while he and junior Colin O'Grady moved up 11 spots to No. 23.

Senior captain Tom Lloyd had a chance to rest his injuries this week and will be ready to go in the NCAAs.

Berkowitz expects Arizona to be a No. 2 seed and stay somewhere within the region.

"We consider ourselves a number two seed no matter what bracket we go to," he said. "If we go anywhere in our region, we may go to Stanford."

If the committee ships the Wildcats out to another region, there might not be a top 20 school there.

"There's a good chance we get shipped somewhere else," Berkowitz said. "The worst case scenario for us is going to Stanford."

Berkowitz expects USC, UCLA, and Stanford to host regionals and believes the committee tries to keep teams close to their region.

The matches will be played like regular season team matches, starting with three doubles matches, for which a team will get one point if it wins at least two of the three. Then, six singles matches will be played, each earning the team one point. The team that earns four points advances to the next round.

"We'll be ready to play," Berkowitz said.