March 23, 2004

Dear Slug Tennis Fans,

What a great day of tennis! We opened the day with a solid outing against the University of the South beating them 7-0. I was very impressed with what wonderful sportsmen they have, and I am sure it is a reflection of their great coach John Shakelford. It was nice to see the continuing development of our doubles as we swept all three matches in relatively easy fashion. Kellen Ali-Christie and Matt Brunner are volleying much better and are putting two and three shot sequences together, which is necessary at 1 doubles to be successful. After a rough start, they are now competitive in every match. At two doubles, Shane Templeman and Matt Seeberger continue to develop. They are breaking so often that as they mature in their serving games they will be able to play at the next level. The Casey boys, Brian and Kevin, also are breaking machines. Kevin is taking the return earlier and attacking much more frequently. In singles, we won all of our matches in straight sets and dominated at most spots. It was great to see Bryce Parmelly at six singles as he has been working very hard at his game lately, and it showed in his convincing victory.

In our second match of the day we played regional rival Cal Lutheran. We again jumped on them in doubles which always makes for a good day with this squad. We won at all three spots and played even better than in the first match. We are definitely maturing in doubles and get more clear as we progress as to specifically where we need to focus our work. The doubles set the tone for the match, and we again swept all the singles matches losing only one set. Brian Casey was last off the court in winning 7-5,6-2 against a very solid Quinn Calderan. Matt Seeberger beat a very tenacious JV Valejos at two singles playing some very solid tennis. Matt continues to grow the offense of his game and his return of serve is becoming a real weapon. Shane Templeman continued his strong and consistent play winning easily at three singles. Matt Brunner is finding his serve and dominated at four singles. Kevin Casey was ruthless at five singles giving up a total of two games. Andrew Cohen was impressive at six singles dropping only four games in the match. With back to back 7-0 wins, the Slugs faced a tough task in taking on University of Washington in the third match of the day!

With our schedule full, we had no other choice when we were asked but to put them on the same day as the other two matches. Our guys have worked very hard at their conditioning and we were severely tested. I cannot tell you how proud I was of them and how they responded to this great challenge. We got swept in doubles but played very well at one and two doubles. Shane Templeman and Matt Seeberger were up a break late in the match and were returning amazingly well. We struggled on several service games and lost a bit our our early aggressiveness in dropping a close decision. At one doubles, Matt Brunner and Kellen Ali-Christie served and volleyed well but struggled with return consistency.

In singles, we put them to the test! Brian Casey played the number 3 ranked player in Div l tennis and stayed right with him losing in two well contested sets 6-2,6-3. His opponent Alex Vlaski of the Czech Republic had a bit too much offense and a great lefty serve. At two singles, Matt Seeberger played another Czech player, Alex Slovic, who has an ATP singles ranking of 680. Matt broke the hard serving lefty four times in two sets but struggled to hold losing 6-3,6-4. Matt turned many heads with brilliant passes and recovery shots. At three singles, Shane Templeman ran his record to 14-0 in dual matches with a 6-2,6-4 win over Daniel Chu. Shane's variety of offense and defense were too much for the attacking Huskie. At one point in the match, Shane had won at three, Matt Seeberger was up a break in the second set at two singles and we had just gone to the third on all three of the back courts. We were firmly in the match! At four singles Matt Brunner played brilliantly to close out the second set playing the best tennis I have ever seen him play. That says a lot as I have seen him play well many times. He was unable to hold this level and lost in three to a very talented Austrian Pete Scharler. At five single Kevin Casey played a superior first set but dropped a three set decision to So Cal's Nick Weiss. At six singles Andrew Cohen played one of Nor Cal's top juniors, Michael Ricks, and won 2-6,6-4,6-4. Andrew is serving better and mixing his attacks off the ground much more effectively. At one time U of W was ranked #11 in the country and are on spring break playing Stanford and Cal later in the week. It was a great opportunity for our players, and they played beautifully.

We leave for So Cal on Monday for some great road matches. We play Claremont College at 2:00 on Tuesday with our first team, while our second team plays Cal Tech also at 2:00. On Wednesday, we play Linfield College at Claremont at 9:30 and Occidental College at 2:30. On Thursday, we play #4 ranked Middlebury College at Pomona College courts at 9:30 and then play La Verne at 2:30 before returning home.

Thanks again to all our great fans and go Slugs! We are now 13-3 for the season.

Coach Hansen and the Slugs

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