Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on UC Davis tennis. Today’s installment: the men.
With a roster as green as some of the courts they play on, the UC Davis men’s tennis team could be forgiven for a possible tough upcoming season.
Featuring five sophomores, two freshmen and one junior, the Aggies will be one of the youngest sides in the Big West and some bumps along the way would not be unexpected.
But that’s not how fifth-year head coach Eric Steidlmayer sees it.
“They’re eager and they’re young and they’re trying to learn,” he said of his charges. “From a coaching standpoint, that’s really great. For us, we have to really pick up some lessons quickly this fall so we can have a little more experience once the spring dual match season starts.
“We have an extensive fall to try to make that happen; a lot of tournaments, a lot of matches and like I said, the guys understand where they’re at and they’re putting in the time and putting in the effort so I feel we’re going to be in a lot better place in about six weeks,” he added.
That fall season began in earnest this past weekend with the Aggie Invitational, a tournament that featured 60 different players from nine teams.
And though UCD didn’t win any of its fights, the young squad featured plenty of promise.
“I felt like we competed hard and got ourselves a lot of matches to start the fall, which was really what we were looking for right now,” Steidlmayer said.
The Invitational was played without sophomore co-captain Ivan Thamma, who instead was in Tulsa, Okla. participating in the ITA All-American Championships, an invitational tournament for the top 150 players in the nation.
In what Steidlmayer called “a pretty big honor,” Thamma reached the second round, becoming one of the last 75 athletes remaining before losing in straight sets to Zeke Clark of Illinois.
Along with Thamma, Steidlmayer will call upon co-captain and the “elder statesman” in junior David Goulak and redshirt sophomore Mitchell Iwahiro as his standout Aggies for the upcoming season.
“All three of those guys, we expect to do really well,” Steidlmayer said.
With only eight total players on the roster, though, expect everyone in the side to compete as the fall season continues Friday at the UC Santa Barbara Classic, one of four more events on the fall calendar before Big West Conference play begins in the spring.
As for when conference play does start, Steidlmayer sees no reason why his squad can’t compete despite its relative lack of experience.
“Our goal every year is to try to compete for the Big West Conference Tournament championship and the Big West Conference regular season title, that’s always our goal,” he said. “Over the last four or five years we’ve been in the top three, the top half of the conference every year. Sometimes we’ve been able to see the goal of winning the conference, other times we’ve been close, but certainly doing that is a big goal for us even with a young team.”
Note: For the singles competition of the Aggie Invitational, Iwahiro finished as the top performer for the hosts, reaching the quarterfinals, while the doubles partnerships of Chethan Swanson and Goulak, Alex Scemanenco and Daniel Landa, and Arijith Jayaraman and Dariush Jalali all also made the quarters.
Reach Evan Ream at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @EvanReam
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