Tribe Puts Scare into No. 14 Pepperdine
Sophomores Sebastien Vidal and Varun Pandit tallied three-set singles wins for the Tribe.
Malibu, Calif. (3/10/09) - The William and Mary men's tennis team put a scare into No. 14-ranked Pepperdine on the road, before falling to the Waves, 5-2, at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center on Monday afternoon. Sophomores Sebastien Vidal and Varun Pandit each tallied singles victories for the Tribe. W&M, which is ranked No. 49 in the ITA National Rankings, dropped to 12-7 overall on the year, while Pepperdine won its fifth straight match in improving to 12-5.
Pepperdine took the initial point of the match with victories at the top two doubles spot. The Green and Gold pair of senior Marwan Ramadan and Pandit defeated Alex Moreno and Mahmoud Kamel in a tiebreaker, 8-7 (8), at the No. 3 position. It marked the first victory of the season for the W&M tandem.
Half of the six singles matches went three sets with the Tribe claiming a pair of those contests. Vidal notched his fourth-straight victory with a come-from-behind three-set win over Alex Llompart at the No. 3 position. After dropping the first set, 6-1, the Tribe sophomore rallied to force a third set with a 6-3 win in the second. With Vidal leading 3-2 in the final set, Llompart retired, giving the Tribe its first singles win of the match. The victory upped Vidal's season ledger to 14-9, while it snapped Llompart’s four-match winning streak. The Wave player entered the match with a 13-3 overall record, including a 12-2 mark at the No. 3 singles slot.
Freshman Ilja Orre narrowly missed his 11th singles win of the season, dropping a three-set affair at the No. 5 spot. After Pepperdine's Alex Moreno won the opening set, 6-4, the W&M rookie rallied to force a decisive third set with a 6-3 win in the second. With the team match already decided, Orre dropped a tight third-set super tiebreaker, 13-11, to Moreno.
Pandit completed his perfect day in singles and doubles with a three-set win over Hugh Clarke at the No. 6 singles position. In a back-and-forth affair, the competitors split the first two sets by identical 6-4 scores. The match continued to be hotly contested in the third set, going into a tiebreaker. Pandit notched his second straight singles victory, dominating the tiebreaker, 7-0. Clarke entered the match with a 3-1 record at the No. 6 position for the Waves.
The Tribe will return to action when it opens up a three-match homestand with its third match against a Big Ten foe this season in Penn State on Friday, March 13. Match time is slated for 1 p.m. at the Busch Tennis Courts. The Green and Gold will wrap up the weekend homestand with a doubleheader on Sunday against No. 66 Harvard and Howard. The match against the Crimson is slated for a 10 a.m. start time, before W&M faces the Bison at 5 p.m. Both matches are scheduled to be played at the Busch Tennis Courts.
#14 Pepperdine 5, #49 William and Mary 2
Singles
No. 1 - #43 Bassam Beidas (Pepperdine) def. Keziel Juneau (W&M) - 6-4, 6-2
No. 2 - #39 Omar Altmann (Pepperdine) def. Marwan Ramadan (W&M) - 6-4, 6-2
No. 3 - Sebastien Vidal (W&M) def. Alex Llompart (Pepperdine) - 1-6, 6-3, 3-2, retired
No. 4 - Mahmoud Kamel (Pepperdine) def. Dominic Pagon (W&M) - 6-3, 7-5
No. 5 - Alex Moreno (Pepperdine) def. Ilja Orre (W&M) - 6-4, 3-6, 13-11
No. 6 - Varun Pandit (W&M) def. Hugh Clarke (Pepperdine) - 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (0)
Finishing Order: 2, 1, 3, 4*, 5, 6
Doubles
No. 1 - #8 Altmann/Beidas (Pepperdine) def. Juneau/Vidal (W&M) - 8-4
No. 2 - Llompart/Clarke (Pepperdine) def. Orre/Pagon (W&M) - 8-2
No. 3 - Pandit/Ramadan (W&M) def. Moreno/Kamel (Pepperdine) - 8-7 (8)
Finishing Order: 2, 1*, 3
