April 3, 2007

Up Next
Santa Clara men's tennis team plays two important make-up matches this week, one at home and one on the road. SCU takes on Stanford on Wednesday, April 4 on the road at the Taube Family Tennis Center at 1:30 p.m. PT. The following day, the Broncos play West Coast Conference rival San Francisco at 2:30 p.m. PT at the Degheri Tennis Center. The USF match was rained out on two previous occasions, while the Stanford match was rained out on March 26.

Last Week
Santa Clara won both of its matches last week, defeating Brigham Young on March 27 in convincing fashion, 6-1, and then earning a heart-stopping 4-3 win over Harvard on March 31. SCU won two out of three doubles matches against BYU and then nearly went unbeaten in singles to claim the victory over the nation's No. 69 team. Bobby Rasmussen stretched his winning streak to nine matches, while Blane Shields' unbeaten run reached eight. On March 31 against Harvard, the Broncos had to battle hard throughout. With Rasmussen out of the lineup, Kevin McQuaid joined Jan Macek at No. 1 singles and the pair got its first win together. Brian Brogan and Jay Wong also won their doubles match to give SCU the doubles point. In singles, Brogan and Wong won tough two-set matches to get the Broncos to three points. However, Harvard won at No. 4 and No. 5 to cut the lead to 3-2. Tommy Hicks then pulled out an improbable victory, coming back to win 1-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 against Sasha Ermakov, to clinch the match for the Broncos.

Notes

Live Scoring For Stanford Match
Bronco fans can catch all the action of the dual match between SCU and Stanford on Wednesday, April 4 from the Taube Family Tennis Center by linking to Stanford's live feed of the matches at this link http://gostanford.cstv.com/livestats/tennis/StanfordTennis.html. The match starts at 1:30 p.m. PT.

Scouting Stanford
The Stanford Cardinal is currently No. 55 in the national rankings and the team has posted a 4-11 record in 2007. The team lost its last match 6-1 to Arizona State on March 31. The team's four wins came against the University of Miami, Arizona State and Arizona (twice). The last meeting between the Stanford and Santa Clara came in 2005 when Stanford won 7-0. Current Broncos Jan Macek, Bobby Rasmussen and Blane Shields all played in that match.

Scouting San Francisco
The Dons are coming off a victory over Central Florida in the seventh place match at the Boise State Tournament. USF beat Central Florida 4-3 after losing to Portland and Ball State in the first two rounds of the tournament in Boise. The Dons are now 8-10 on the season. The Dons have beaten Northern Arizona, Loyola Marymount, Hawai'i, Gonzaga, UC Davis, Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara and Central Florida on the season. The team also has four wins away from home this season. The Broncos took two days to defeat the Dons after rain interrupted the first day of play in the last meeting between the teams. Santa Clara earned a 5-2 victory at the Olympic Club in San Francisco with SCU taking the doubles point and then winning four singles matches. Jay Wong, Tommy Hicks, Bobby Rasmussen and Robert Gallman all earned singles wins. Rasmussen and Jan Macek and Gallman and Blane Shields won doubles matches for George Husack's squad.

Doubles Point
The doubles point continues to be huge for George Husack's team. The Broncos are 15-0 when winning the doubles point and 0-5 when losing the doubles point.

15 Wins
The Broncos have reached 15 wins for the first time under current head coach George Husack. His previous high was 14, set in 2005 and equaled last season. The all-time record for wins in a season is 20, set in 1986 by Cliff Barrett's team.

Win Streak
Santa Clara had its nine-match win streak snapped against Cornell on March 23. The Broncos had not lost since Feb. 9 to Arizona State. The streak was the second longest in program history behind a 12-match winning streak from March 2-April 7, 2002. However, the Broncos have recovered well to win three-straight matches following that defeat and they also still own a four-match road win streak after sweeping three contests away from home from March 4-11.

Macek/Rasmussen and McQuaid/Shields Moving Up Record Books
The doubles teams of Jan Macek/Bobby Rasmussen and Kevin McQuaid/Blane Shields are moving up the record books in career doubles victories. McQuaid and Shields won a school record 20 matches last year to move to No. 4 all-time in doubles wins. The pair has won six matches this year and is now in sole possession of third all-time with 26 wins. Macek and Rasmussen started the year with 18 career wins together and have burst out of the gate this spring, posting a 16-5 record so far to move into sole possession of second place all-time with 34 wins. Macek and Rasmussen are still 13 wins away from the all-time leaders, Marcell Hlousek and Jeremy Testwuide, who won 47 matches together at SCU from 1997-99. For a single season, Macek and Rasmussen are tied for seventh all-time with 16 wins. One more win would catapult them into a tie for fourth place.

Macek/Rasmussen Nearing Top-10 In Combined Doubles
Bobby Rasmussen reached 51 career combined doubles wins and Jan Macek reached 48 with the pair's wins against San Francisco on March 7 and Cal Poly on March 11. Rasmussen is now tied with Matt Cox (1998-2001) for the No. 9 spot in Broncos history with 51 combined wins. Next on the list is Taylor Bedilion '05, who had 56 career doubles wins. With Rasmussen sitting out on March 24 and 31, Macek teamed with Kenzo Hirakawa-Wong and Kevin McQuaid respectively to win two matches and get to 50 career wins.

Rasmussen Into Top-10 In Singles
Senior Bobby Rasmussen has gotten off to a fantastic start to the spring season in singles, posting a 15-4 record to move his career singles record to 60-48. He is now tied with Federico Mattioli for sixth all-time in singles wins at SCU. Rasmussen has now won nine straight singles matches for SCU. The senior lost his first five matches in the fall, but since those losses he has posted an 18-4 record.

Wong Super Frosh
Freshman Jay Wong gutted out a tough two-set match against Harvard on March 31 to win his 25th match of the season. He won two tiebreakers in the match against Dan Nguyen and he is now tied for second all-time in single-season singles wins in program history. He is tied with Chris Lam and Erich Chen, who both won 25 matches in 2002. The San Jose native has a 25-9 record on the year. He passed teammate Tommy Hicks, who won 24 matches in 2005-06. The all-time record for wins in a season is 30, accomplished by Francisco Zepponi when he posted a 30-8 record in 2002. The Broncos have five regular season matches remaining followed by the WCC Championships for Wong to catch Zepponi.

Resurgent Hicks
Sophomore Tommy Hicks won 24 singles matches as a freshman last year. However, he started off struggling in the dual match season this year going winless in his first five matches. The Portland, Ore. native recovered nicely, winning six in a row to move his dual match record at above .500 at 6-5. His streak was finally snapped on March 23 against Cornell, but he has come back to win two straight matches to get to 8-6 in duals and 16-11 overall. In his win over Harvard's Sasha Ermakov on March 31, he lost the first set 6-1 and was down a break twice in the second set before getting to a tiebreaker. After falling behind 5-1 in the second set tiebreaker, he came back to win six straight points to capture the set 7-6 (7-5). He then pulled another comeback in the third set, recovering from a 4-1 deficit to win the set 6-4 and the match 1-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.

Shields Unbeaten
Junior Blane Shields finally lost a match after winning his first eight singles matches in duals. He fell 6-3, 6-2 to Gideon Valkin of Harvard on March 31 to drop his record to 8-1 in duals. He is 15-3 overall in singles after going 7-2 in the fall and he has also clinched three wins for SCU.

Bronco Firsts
The Santa Clara men's tennis team has achieved a number of notable firsts this season on the courts. The team defeated UC Irvine for the first time in program history on Feb. 4, earning a 6-1 win. The team's win over the University of Arizona on Feb. 10 contained a pair of firsts. The Broncos had never beaten Arizona in the past and they had not beaten a Pac-10 team on the road. However, SCU accomplished both tasks with its 4-3 victory. The Broncos achieved another first in on March 11, defeating Cal Poly on the road for the first time in school history.

Ranked Foes
SCU has already played 11 ranked opponents this season, Boise State (25), California (18), Pepperdine (9), UC Irvine (74), Arizona State (57), Arizona (72), Hawai'i (73), Oregon (75), Saint Mary's (72), Cornell (75) and BYU (69). Those rankings were at the time of the match. The Broncos played only 10 ranked opponents all of last season. The Broncos next opponent Stanford is ranked 55th.