Thursday, 01/19/2012

THIS WEEK
The top-ranked USC men’s tennis team kick-starts its pursuit of a fourth straight national championship with its first dual matches of the year right here on the home courts of Marks Stadium. The Trojans carry a 19-match winning streak left over from last year’s championship run into this week’s doubleheader for their season-opening day at Troy. The first clash is a 10 a.m. tangle with LMU, followed by a 2:30 p.m. matchup with UC Santa Barbara on Saturday (Jan. 21). The LMU-UC Santa Barbara doubleheader is the same lineup with which the Trojans kicked off the 2010 season.

ITA RANKING UPDATES
The USC men enter 2012 where they left off in 2011 -- at the top of the national rankings for a No. 1 start to a 2012 season that the Trojans hope to finish out on top of for th fourth straight year. ITA Southwest Regional Singles Champion Ray Sarmiento leads the pack with a No. 12 ranking in the nation as he settles into his sophomore season with the Trojans. Senior Daniel Nguyen is next in line at No. 16. The other three spots are filled by more Trojan youth, with freshman Yannick Hanfmann standing tall at No. 33 and sophomore Emilio Gomez at No. 48. Sophomore Michael Grant rounds out the pack at No. 124.

SCOUTING LMU
The Lions open their season on Thursday against Nevada before coming to Troy for Saturday’s match. USC is 2-0 all-time against LMU, most recently claiming a 7-0 sweep of the Lions in the first match of USC’s 2010 season-opening doubleheader.

SCOUTING UCSB
The Gauchos entered the week with a 2-1 record on the way into a Thursday match against BYU before heading to USC on Saturday. UCSB lost to Mississippi State 5-2 and beat Gonzaga 6-1 and Hawai’i 4-3 in Honolulu to open its 2012 dual-match season. USC is 28-1 all-time against UC Santa Barbara, most recently claiming a 4-3 win over the Gauchos in the second match of USC’s 2010 season-opening doubleheader. that was USC’s 11th straight win over UCSB, with the Gauchos’ only win over the Trojans coming in the 1997 season opener.

SHERWOOD SWEEP
Trojans were the only ones left playing on the final day of the Sherwood Collegiate Cup on Jan. 16, with a USC sweep to the singles and doubles title matches. The Trojans come home with a solid set of hardware for their trophy cases, as Steve Johnson won the singles championship in beating teammate Daniel Nguyen, while Nguyen teamed up with Ray Sarmiento on the doubles courts to beat Johnson and Yannick Hanfmann 9-7 to claim the doubles championship. Almost a third of the singles draw was comprised of Trojans for the early-spring tournament, which culminated in today’s all-Trojan title matches. Senior Steve Johnson stepped back to the collegiate courts for the first time since winning the 2011 NCAA Singles Championship after a stint as an amateur on the pro circuit. He now holds a clean 5-0 singles record on the year thanks to today’s 6-2, 6-2 championship win over his fellow senior teammate and three-time NCAA Team Champion Daniel Nguyen. The two seniors spent a lot of time on opposite sides of the net today, in fact. In the doubles final, Nguyen was paired with his trusty sophomore teammate Ray Sarmiento -- whom he had paired with to much success during USC’s run to the 2011 national championship -- for the Sherwood title match against Johnson and USC freshman Yannick Hanfmann. Johnson/Hanfmann were the No. 2 seeded team in the doubles draw, but Nguyen/Sarmiento won the day with a late push for a 9-7 victory that captured the doubles crown.

STREAKING STEVIE
Senior Steve Johnson finished his junior season with a 35-match singles winning streak in claiming the 2011 NCAA Singles Championship, and has now boosted the stretch to 40 in a row with last weekend’s run to the Sherwood Collegiate Cup crown. Johnson took a fall break from collegiate tennis to play as an amateur on the pro circuit, where he won a USTA Pro Circuit Futures singles title in Claremont, Calif., and an ATP Challenger doubles title in Knoxville, Tenn. Now back on the collegiate courts, the senior five-time All-American is looking to ultimately lead the Trojans to a fourth straight national championship while he also most certainly amasses a dominating winning record of his own.

NGUYEN CLUTCH IN FRANCE
USC senior Daniel Nguyen has locked in on the clinching match for the past two NCAA Team Championships for the three-time defending champ Trojans, and in a December trip to France he tapped into those clutch skills in helping Team USA beat host France 4-3 in the championship of the Master’U BNP Paribas. The U.S. team of the top American collegians went up against France in the final for the third straight year and fell behind 3-1 in singles play. In doubles, however, Nguyen had two matches on his plate, first teaming up with Virginia’s Jarmere Jenkins -- an opponent of the Trojans’ in the past two NCAA Tournaments -- for a straight-set win that boosted up the USA’s chances. Nguyen then turned around and stepped up for a mixed doubles match alongside fellow Pac-12 player Jacqueline Cako of ASU. The Trojan-Sun Devil duo would overpower their French opponents to the tune of a match-clinching 6-4, 6-1 victory that sewed up a 4-3 win for Team USA to claim its second Master’U BNP Paribas championship in the past three years.

RAY ROLLS AT REGIONALS
In October, Ray Sarmiento topped off his tear through the ITA Southwest Regional Championships with yet another straight-set victory to claim the singles title for the Trojan sophomore in Malibu. Up against an upset-minded Francis Alcantara of Fresno State, Sarmiento served up a solid 6-4, 6-3 win to become the first Trojan to win a regional singles title in over a decade. The No. 2 seed in the tourney, Sarmiento never gave up more than four games in a set to anyone but No. 3 seeded Finn Tearney of host Pepperdine during the semifinals. In he title match with Alcantara, Sarmiento was similarly dominant as he picked up his sixth consecutive straight-set win of the year to bring a long-awaited regional championship to Troy. No Trojan has won a singles title at the ITA regionals since Andrew Park went back-to-back in the 1999 and 2000 regional tournaments.

SOCAL SUCCESS
USC’s sophomore-freshman doubles combo of Emilio Gomez and Yannick Hanfmann extended their dominating run through the Southern California Intercollegiate Championships into a championship victory at the tourney in November in Westwood. Up against a Bruin team playing on their home courts, the two young and top-seeded Trojans served up an 8-4 win over UCLA’s No. 2 seeded Brigham/Thompson to win the doubles title.

LAST SEASON
USC finished 2011 on a 19-match winning streak that carried the Trojans to their third straight NCAA championship for a final 27-2 overall record. Junior Steve Johnson would win the NCAA singles championship as well, becoming the first USC player -— since the dual-match format was incorporated into the NCAA championships in 1977 — to win a team and singles title in the same year. Johnson was named the 2011 ITA National Player of the Year, and earned All-American honors along with freshman Ray Sarmiento. Peter Smith was named the Pac-10 Coach of the Year in leading the Trojans to their first undefeated conference finish since 1987. Johnson also was named the Pac-10 Player of the Year, joined by teammates Jaak Poldma (first team), Sarmiento, (second team), Nguyen and Emilio Gomez (honorable mention) on the all-conference honor roll.