What an exciting year 2008 promises to be!! Our women’s team begins the season ranked a solid # 2 behind defending national champion, Georgia Tech – never count out a Lele Forood/Frankie Brennan coached team! Our men’s team (pictured below in Hawaii) is poised to make a most significant impact on the race for the Championship – Coaches John Whitlinger and Brandon Coupe have their young team “back in the hunt.” This year, the bulk of the men’s home schedule is in February and March, so be prepared for an early start to the season (Feb. 1 and 2 – UCLA & USC).

Unfortunately, the heavy winter schedule of both teams negated the possibility of the annual “Kick-Off” banquet and festivities this year.

U.S. DAVIS CUP TEAM

CONGRATULATIONS to the U.S. Davis Cup Team, led by Captain Patrick McEnroe and the World’s # 1 Doubles Team, Mike and Bob Bryan on bringing home the Davis Cup title (left to right below). See the entire team in action at the SAP Open, and make a special effort to watch the Bryan Brothers, following Andy Roddick’s opening 7pm match on Tuesday, February 19.

The fall schedule was hectic as usual but we got lots of matches in and some great experience for our new team members!  The highlight was Jessica Nguyen’s win at home in the ITA Regional Championships!

In November we had a wonderful Thanksgiving trip to Wailea, Maui which included a win over the Rainbow Warriors.  Thanks again to everyone who made the trip with us this year. We will be returning to the fabulous Wailea Tennis Club again this fall.

Winter quarter starts fast as half the team will go to Las Vegas Jan. 10-13 for the Freeman Invitational at UNLV, and then the others will go to the desert for the NCTC Classic on Jan. 18-20th.  Shortly after we will start our home dual match schedule with some very important matches before the team indoors in February highlighted by a very good Fresno St. squad!  Please join us for these early matches and see a very talented team get it started in 08! (Note the 11am start time for the UNLV match on Feb. 1st before the men’s team plays USC!)

Brandon, JJ, and I were very pleased with our fall season. The team worked extremely hard in practice, and strength and conditioning. Our strength coach (Jason Quan) did an outstanding job with the team this fall.

We had some excellent results in the early season tournaments.  Freshman Alex Clayton qualified and got to the quarter-finals of the ITA All-American tournament in Tulsa. He also made it to the semi-finals of the ITA Individual Indoors in Columbus. Sophomore Richard Wire won the ITA Regionals in Seattle. He also made it to the doubles final with freshman Greg Hirshman. They lost to teammates junior Blake Muller and freshman Ted Kelly. These results have led to some very good regional singles rankings: Clayton #1, Wire #6, Matt Bruch #9. In doubles, Muller/Kelly #2, Wire/Hirshman #4, Clayton/Bruch #7.

The team spent Thanksgiving week in Hawaii for the 33rd annual trip. We were hosted once again by the Wailea Tennis Club in Maui. We defeated Hawaii 6-1 on November 20.

We are looking forward to the start of the dual match season. We are starting out with a tough road trip to Tulsa. We will play a very good Tulsa team, as well as the defending NCAA champion Georgia Bulldogs. We then come back home to play UCLA and USC. It will be a good test for the team right out of the blocks. We have some very good inter-sectional matches at home versus Baylor and Boise State. The Pac-10 matches will be very competitive as always.
Before the dual matches start we have a tournament at the Sherwood Country Club January 18-21.

Thank you for all your support. Hope to see you at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium this season. GO CARD!!

2008 Roster:
Matt Bruch  Junior – Lake Forest, IL
Alex Clayton  Freshman – Plantation, FL
Kevin Kaiser  Sophomore – Saratoga, CA
Phil Kao  Senior – Cupertino, CA
Ted Kelly  Freshman – Owings Mills, MD
Greg Hirshman  Freshman – La Jolla, CA
Paul Morrissey  Sophomore – Dublin, Ireland
Blake Muller  Junior – Santa Barbara, CA 
Richard Wire  Sophomore – Essex, England
Jeff Zeller  Junior – Centennial, CO