Apparently it was too sunny in Eugene this week for the Oregon men’s tennis team, because they’re heading south for partly cloudy skies and difficult competition.
The Ducks will be in San Diego for the All-Colleges Tournament on a weekend that is expected to be uncharacteristically cloudy in America’s Finest City.
Oded Teig, Sven Swinnen and Manuel Kost will receive a well-deserved rest this week after competing in the Icy Hot/ITA Men’s All-American Championships in Chattanooga, Tenn., last week. The Ducks will showcase Jason Menke, Chris King, Kyle Halberg, Thomas Bieri, Arron Spencer, Junaid Hossain, and Andrew Walker in their first competition of the early 2002-03 season.
“I am very excited about the seven team members (going to San Diego),” head coach Chris Russell said. “They have been working their tails off here for the past three weeks and are very keen on playing against some outside competition.”
Players from the Arizona, California, Fresno State, Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, San Diego State, California-Irvine, California-Riverside, California-San Diego, California-Santa Barbara, and the host school, San Diego, will compete with the Ducks in the three-day event.
The favorite in the tournament is No. 1 seed Wayne Wong from Cal. He is followed by No. 2 seed Tigran Martitosyan of Loyola Marymount and hometown favorites Nicolas Beuque of USD and Daniel Jung of San Diego State.
Bieri and Hossain earned themselves a No. 3 seed in doubles action.
Halberg, King, and Menke are making their second straight appearance in the San Diego Tourney while freshmen Bieri, Spencer, Hossain, and Walker are competing in their first collegiate matches. Last year, King won all five of his singles matches.
The singles side of the tournament consists of a 64-player draw split up into two groups called Flights 1 and 2. There is also a 30-team doubles event with the No. 1 and No. 2 seeded doubles teams earning a first-round bye.
Russell is enthusiastic about his team’s progress and hopes that this tournament will become another building block to a good season.
“The trip (to Tennessee) exposed our strengths and weaknesses,” he said. “But that is what we try to do at this time of the year, so we become aware of what we need to do for the team season.”
The Ducks begin play today
at 8 a.m.
Ryan Heath is a freelance writer
for the Emerald.