Collegiate tennis stars hit Sherwood Country Club

BILL SPARKES/Acorn Newspapers BIG HITTER—Baylor’s Matija Zgaga crushes a forehand shot down the line during Monday’s singles final of the Sherwood Collegiate Cup 2006. The event was held at the Sherwood Country Club. Zgaga won the championship match (6-2, 4-6, 7-5) over Stanford’s Matt Bruch. Six NCAA men’s college tennis teams currently ranked in the top 20 nationally sent players to last weekend’s Sherwood Collegiate Cup 2006 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

The four-day event got underway last Friday with a 32-man field for the singles tournament and a 16-team doubles field.

All six universities represented—UCLA (No. 5), Baylor (No. 7), Pepperdine (No. 9), Florida State (No. 11) Stanford (No. 14) and USC (No. 20)—are currently ranked in the Fila collegiate tennis rankings.

“UCLA won (the NCAA title) last year, Baylor won it the year before that,” Sherwood director of tennis Darren Miller said. “It’s definitely top-notch competition. It’s not going to get much better, unless you’re going to watch the national championship.”

The Collegiate Cup was the country club’s sixth consecutive year hosting the tournament. Miller said this year’s festivities were the biggest in the Cup’s short history.

Sponsorships rose from a single sponsor last year to double digits this year, Miller said. There were more fans in attendance, too, mostly because Sherwood opened up its doors to the public and didn’t charge admission.

“I kind of wanted to get the crowds out here to see Sherwood, to see what kind of community this is,” Miller said. “Hopefully it’ll continue to create interest in the future.”

Some of the teams stayed in housing on the club’s grounds, while others spent their nights at Westlake Village Inn, which donated several rooms, Miller said.

Florida State assistant coach Nick Crowell said the tournament was a great chance for three of his players to match up against some of the West Coast’s top tennis talent.

“The level of play here was really high,” Crowell said. “You have two of the top four players in the country here. It was good for our players to see that.”

The nation’s top-ranked men’s player—Baylor’s Lars Poerschke—won his first two matches before being upended by UCLA’s Mathieu Dehaine (6-4, 5-7, 6-1) in the quarterfinals.

Stanford’s Matt Bruch, ranked No. 4 nationally and seeded second in the tournament, made it to the finals in both singles and doubles play.

In the singles final Monday morning, Bruch dropped the first game to Baylor’s Matija Zgaga.

Bruch rallied to win the next game to stay alive. But in the third and deciding game, both players held serve until Zgaga broke Bruch with the match knotted a six games apiece, giving Zgaga, a junior from Slovenia, the victory (6-2, 4-6, 7-5) and the singles title.

“It was a really tough, long match, about two and a half hours, I guess,” Zgaga said. “I started playing really well after he broke me in the first game. I was playing aggressive.”

Zgaga said he could see his game continue to improve as the tournament wore on.

“If I compared my game in the final to Friday’s first round, it’s much better now,” Zgaga said. “If I didn’t get better, I wouldn’t have won the tournament, that’s for sure.”

Bruch, a freshman, was frustrated with his play throughout the match, and scolded himself on several occasions.

“I made too many mistakes for no apparent reason at all,” Bruch said. “I wasn’t moving at all and was out of balance several times.”

Despite the singles loss, Bruch said he thoroughly enjoyed playing at Sherwood.

“It’s been fantastic,” Bruch said. “It’s probably one of the best clubs I’ve ever played at. It’s picturesque. You can’t really ask for too much more.”

In the doubles championship, Bruch and his partner, James Pade, lost to Florida State’s Ytai Abougzir and Chris Westerhoff (81) in an eight game pro-set match.

Even before the final tournament match had ended, Florida State’s Crowell was already making plans to return in 2007.

“We’re just excited that Sherwood let us come,” Crowell said. “Coming to Thousand Oaks is really relaxing. The weather’s great and the people are so nice. We hope we can come back next year.”