Bulldog Netters Set To Meet Pepperdine In First Round Of NCAA Championship
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Mississippi State's men's tennis team will open competition in the 2003 NCAA Team Championship Saturday morning when the Bulldogs meet Pepperdine in the first round in Nashville, Tenn. The Bulldogs and Waves will square off at 9 a.m. CT at Vanderbilt's Currey Tennis Center.
State (8-12) is currently ranked 39th nationally. MSU is making its 13th consecutive NCAA appearance, one of only seven teams (Florida, Georgia, MSU, Southern Cal, Stanford, TCU and UCLA) in the country that can claim that distinction. The Bulldogs finished tied for fourth in the Western Division of the powerful Southeastern Conference, which placed 11 of its 12 teams in this year's NCAA field. MSU is led by junior all-American Romain Ambert, ranked 19th nationally in singles.
Pepperdine (16-10) is ranked 26th in the country at present. The Waves have won eight of their last 10 contests, including the championship of the Western Athletic Conference. PU is paced by junior Calle Hansen, who is the country's 53rd-ranked singles player. Hansen and Diego Acuna team to form the nation's sixth-ranked doubles duo.
The Bulldogs and Waves have clashed only four times previously with State holding a 3-1 advantage in those contests, all of them coming at neutral sites. The last meeting was in 1996 when then-sixth-ranked MSU posted a 4-3 victory over seventh-ranked Pepperdine in the fifth-place match at the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Louisville, Ky.
"Pepperdine has a very solid team," MSU head coach Sylvain Guichard said. "They have had a good season and have been playing well lately. We will have to have a very good effort to beat them, but we will be prepared."
Despite the distance between the schools, all of the coaches in the MSU-PU contest are very familiar with each other. Guichard in his second season as head coach, and eighth year of coaching overall, at State. Pepperdine is mentored by first-year coach Adam Steinberg, who was Alabama's leader from 1998-2002. Second-year Bulldog assistant coach Jeremy Bayon played for MSU from 1997-2000. First-year Wave assistant coach Per Nilsson played for State from 1991-94, teaming with Guichard to help the Bulldogs claim the 1993 SEC Championship.
The winner of the MSU-PU affair will advance to Sunday's second round to meet the winner between sixth-ranked regional host Vanderbilt and Tennessee Tech. That match, which will begin at Noon, will be to advance to the round of 16 which begins May 17 in Athens, Ga.
This weekend's contests in Nashville can be followed live on the Internet at Vanderbilt's official athletic site at the following link: www.vucommodores.com/mentennis/postgame/ncaa2003.htm.