Feb. 20, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

Briefly
LMU men's tennis hosts back-to-back matches this week at the LMU Tennis Center. On Thursday, the Lions get a visit from UC San Diego when they host the Tritons for a 2:00 p.m. match. Saturday, West Coast Conference foes University of San Francisco travels to LMU to play the Lions at 1 p.m.

LMU This Season
The young Lions will be counting on their five returners for leadership this season. Coming back for LMU are seniors Sam Tadevosian and Jacek Twarowski, along with sophomores, Renzo Maggi, Dmitry Popov and Nick Von Der Ahe. In addition, first-year head coach Brad Sceney also welcomes four freshmen, Aris Andreasian (Glendale, CA), Johan Berhof (Kullavik, Sweden), Ivan Lopez (Almeria, Spain) and Stefan Nikolic (Belgrade, Serbia). "Our newcomers are going to have to be ready to perform straight away and I believe they are," Sceney said. "Also our sophomores are going to have to step up a notch from last year and be ready for plenty of playing time. Our team goal is to finish in the top-4 in the conference, last year we took 7th place." The Lions will have a tough go of it early on as they face nationally ranked programs in three of their first six matches. "We are currently unranked but we have every opportunity to achieve a national ranking with the schedule that we have," Sceney added. "We face two top-20 teams which will be a great test, and six other teams that are ranked, so the opportunities are there". Over the course of the spring 2008 season, the Lions will face a total of eight teams that appear in the national rankings.

Last Match Recap
LMU hosted No. 73 BYU Saturday at the LMU Tennis Center where they captured a 4-3 victory over the Cougars. LMU took home the doubles point to begin the match. Renzo Maggi and Sam Tadevosian defeated Jonathan Sanchez and Cassidy Mears at the No. 1 spot, 8-6. At No. 2, Johan Berhof and Jacek Twarowski beat Evan Urbina and Daniel Hwang in an exciting match, 8-6. On court three, BYU's Thomas Shubert and A.J. Young took the match from Ivan Lopez and Nick Von Der Ahe, 8-5. In singles, Twarowski defeated Sanchez at the No. 1 slot (7-6, 6-2), while Lopez beat Urbina in straight sets at No. 3 (6-2, 6-0). At No. 4 singles, Maggi came out victorious for the deciding point, in a three set match against Mears (6-1, 4-6, 6-4). Berhof also went into three sets, but ended up losing in a close match to Hwang (6-4, 1-6, 7-5). In other singles action, Tadevosian lost at the No. 2 position to Thomas Shubert (3-6, 5-6), and Nikolic fell to Tom Young on court six (0-6, 3-6). The Loyola Marymount men's tennis team was swept, 7-0, by UC Santa Barbara on Sunday at UCSB's Recreation Center courts. Despite the sweep, the overall match was quite a bit closer than the score would indicate. LMU forced UCSB to come from a break down both at #1 and save three match points at #2 doubles to "steal" the doubles point. Jacek Twarowski took the first set over Bijan Hejazi at the No. 1 spot, taking the opening frame by a count of 7-6. Unfortunately for the Lions, Hejazi responded well in the second and third sets, winning 6-3 and 6-4, respectively. Sam Tadevosian fell at the No. 2 spot, 7-5 and 6-4, and Ivan Lopez fell in two sets after a good match, 6-3 and 7-6. UCSB's Jack Hui defeated Renzo Maggi by a count of 6-0, 6-1. Johan Berhof and Aris Andreasian, playing in the No. 5 and No. 6 positions, put up a strong fight before eventually dropping matches to the Gauchos. Andreasian took the first set of his match, 6-3, before losing 6-3 and 6-4 over the next two. Berhof was defeated in straight sets 6-3 and 6-4.

About UC San Diego
The 6th-ranked (Division II) UC San Diego men's tennis team notched a thrilling 6-3 victory over 15th-ranked Abilene Christian on Saturday afternoon in Phoenix, Ariz. The match was played as part of a Division II Tournament in Phoenix that attracted many of the top D-II teams from around the country. The Tritons jumped out to a 2-1 lead after the doubles portion of the match, winning the No. 1 and No. 3 matches on the ladder. The NCAA Division II's top-ranked doubles tandem of Blake Meister and Eric Rubens posted an 8-4 win over Juan Nunez and Ryan Hudson while Alex Placek and Chad Becker won by a 9-8 margin at the No. 3 spot over Brian Joiner and Brett Proctor. In singles play, UCSD won the top four matches, three of which came in three-sets. Bijan Moallemi won by scores of 6-7, 6-3 and 6-3 over Nunez in the No. 1 spot on the ladder while Eric Rubens defeated Ryan Hudson at No. 2 by scores of 6-4, 4-6 and 7-6. Kazumi Negishi won the No. 3 singles match over Luke Hawk, notching 6-2 and 7-5 victories after dropping the first set by a 7-6 margin. Meister captured the No. 4 singles match with his straight-set victory over Joey Farias, winning 7-6 and 6-2. UCSD cruised to a 7-2 victory over 36th-ranked Hawaii-Hilo on Sunday afternoon at the Ironwood High School Tennis Courts in Phoenix. With the win the Tritons improve to 5-1 on the season. UCSD jumped out to an early 3-0 lead after the doubles portion of the match, winning all three in relatively easy fashion. The top-ranked duo at the Division II level, Eric Rubens and Blake Meister, notched an 8-4 win at No. 1 while Alex Placek and Chad Becker cruised at No. 2 with an 8-3 victory. Bijan Moallemi and Alex Edstrom rounded out the doubles sweep with an 8-5 win at the final spot on the doubles ladder. In singles play, head coach Eric Steidlmayer's squad won each of the top four matches, three of which came in straight-sets. The lone exeption was at No. 3 where Kazumi Negishi needed three sets to beat Stephan Royalty, winning by scores of 3-6, 6-3 and 11-9. Eric Steidlmayer is in his tenth season as head coach of UC San Diego men's tennis. The Tritons are 3-2.

About San Francisco
San Francisco men's tennis took the big 6-1 win over UC Davis at the Marya Welch Tennis Center on Monday. With the win, the Dons are 4-2. USF won a tightly contested doubles point by claiming a pair of tiebreakers. The first match to finish was at No. 2 where Aggies Daniel Elefant and Michael Reiser defeated USF's freshman Rainer Nachbauer and sophomore Thong Tu, 8-2. At No. 1, freshman Asaf Cohen and junior Falko Huettenberger outlasted Davis' Justin Garcia and Henri Landes 9-8. The duo won the tiebreaker, 7-2. With both teams posting a win in doubles, the clinching match came down to No. 3 where sophomore Torin Ching and sophomore Mitch Del Rosario won a 7-4 tiebreaker over Nic Amaroli and Kevin Liang, giving the Dons a 1-0 lead heading to singles. Huettenberger was the first to win in singles, defeating Elefant, 6-1, 6-4, at No. 5. The win put USF up 2-0 in the match. Tu made it 3-0 with a 7-5 (6), 6-1 victory at No.1 over Landes. Davis' Tyler Lee kept the Aggies alive with a three-set victory at No. 6 over Ching, 6-3, 1-6, 6-2, to pull the Aggies within 3-1. That would be the first of four three-set marathons to finish in singles. Freshman Einar Hart's win at No. 4 over Nick Lopez proved to be the clincher as it gave USF a 4-1 lead. Cohen and Nachbauer would post victories at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, to close out the scoring. USF is 4-2 this season with head coach Peter Bartlett leading the Dons in his 11th season.

Head Coach Brad Sceney
Sceney comes to the bluff after serving as the Director of Tennis at The Paseo Club in Valencia, CA., and enjoying an impressive collegiate career at Pepperdine from 1995-98. "We are excited to add Brad to our LMU family," LMU Athletic Director, Bill Husak said. "Brad has championship experience, both collegiately in the West Coast Conference, and professionally on the ATP Tour. We look forward to watching his leadership in action as he begins his work with our program." An All-American while at Pepperdine, Sceney helped the Waves to a top-10 ranking each of his four seasons in Malibu. His mark of 85 career singles victories is still the Pepperdine record today. In 1996, Sceney won the All-American Doubles Championship. Following his collegiate career, Sceney spent time in the professional tennis ranks, earning rankings in the top-600 in singles and top-300 in doubles after just one year on the ATP Tour. "I am excited to return to the collegiate athletics world," Sceney said. "LMU is a fantastic place to work and play, with a beautiful campus and great facilities that provide the basis for a top tennis program. I look forward to working toward that end with the team and staff." Sceney, a native of Australia, won the 1992 Australian Open Junior Doubles Championship. He was the second-ranked junior in Australia from 1986-1992 and was a member of the country's junior national team. For the last nine years, Sceney has worked with Topseed Tennis Academy, a corporation that owns and operates three tennis clubs and one sports club in Southern California. Hired as a tennis instructor in 1999, Sceney advanced to the title of Director of Tennis at one of the company's sites, The Paseo Club in Valencia, CA. There, he manages a staff of 10 tennis professionals and coordinates the tennis program for approximately 3,500 members.

Lions Spotlight: Freshman Ivan Lopez
Ivan Lopez begins his first season with LMU Tennis, after being at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee last year. This season, Lopez has been off to a strong start winning four-of-five singles matches at the No. 3 position. In his first collegiate match against 75th-ranked Santa Clara, Lopez won at No. 3 singles (6-1, 6-3) and doubles (8-3), to help the Lions to a 5-2 win over their conference foes. He continued on his strong play, winning his next three singles matches against No. 33 Clemson (6-4, 6-2), Sacramento State (6-1, 6-2) and No. 73 BYU (6-2, 6-0). His only loss comes agains UC Santa Barbara (3-6, 6-7) last weekend when the Lions were swept 7-0 by the Gauchos. Lopez hails from Almeria, Spain. The son of Teresa Munoz and Bernardo Lopez, he has a younger sister, Celia.