Pre-season rankings are out for men's and women's tennis.

The men are ranked 15th and freshmen Jerry Makowski and Yevgeny Supeko are highly ranked individually (23rd and 70th). Senior Ante Matijevic is not ranked since he took the semester off to play in Croatia, but he would have been top 25 as well.

The women are ranked 16th and senior Helga Viera is ranked 47th individually.

This should be a fun year for tennis in Aggieland as the men are hosting the NCAA Championships in May and the women are looking to make it 3 big 12 championships in three years.

The ladies will likley repeat if they can get healthy.

The men have lost a lot of experience. The first spring rankings don't mean much since many players don't play in the fall. So during the first month there is quite a lot of movement. generally if you are not playing in the top 2 or 3, you drop below 100 fairly quickly.

Plus the men don't have Lester, Marvin, or Matt Loucks they left the team. Plus Nallon is on medical red shirt because of his knee surgery.

So the team will be pretty green.

Yev is AWESOME. Not sure about at tennis, but he's hilarious.

Is Lester Cook coming back? He is listed on the Aggie roster but no mention of him when talking about ranked players. Did he turn Pro? thanks

Lester will not be with us this spring. I think we will be fine with Ante, Jerry, Simo, Yevgeny, Brett,Bryan, Matt,Zach Dash, etc.(I am sure I am leaving someone out). Losing Lester does put the spot at number one doubles up in the air. We need to solidify the doubles line-up and get some production from them this year, especially earlier rather than later.

What happened to Lester?

Lester left that is a bad move in my opinion. He was one hell of a college player but I don't see him being successful on the pro circuit. Wish he stayed with the us one more year. Good luck to him.

I had heard Les was not coming back, but I thought he changed his mind and was going to play in the spring...anyone know for sure? this would be huge if he comes back, but can he after playing and winning money?

Appears he's gone:

http://www.aggieathletics.com/pressRelease.php?PRID=9194

Wonder how our doubles teams are going to shake out now?

a guess in the line-up
Ante
jerry
simo
yev
brett
bryan

Doub brett/ante zack,bryan,bain,jerry in random order at 2 and 3


[This message has been edited by ag10s (edited 1/20/2005 2:05a).]

You know you are not in too bad a shape if you have Brett at number five in your line-up.

Losing Lester and Marvin doesn't hurt us nearly as much in singles as it does in doubles.

We're very deep in our singles lineup. However, we've struggled in doubles the past few years and Lester and Marvin were 2 of our top 4 doubles guys.

I'll be interested to see what kind of doubles teams Cass puts together.

Aggiedoc is right about the doubles. Our team will be good, possibly top 10, but we would have needed Les to even have a chance against Germany...errr...I mean Baylor, who barring injuries will win it all again. They have all of their championship team back and have added yet another German, and this kid is currently ranked #11.

Well Baylor doesn't return their entire team from last year...they lost their #3, 5, and 6 singles players in Marin, Neurohr, and Lovrak...all 3 played doubles too. Marin and Neurohr were seniors, not sure what happened to Lovrak. Regardless, the top of their lineup is ridiculously strong.

The good news is that the back half of our singles lineup should be real strong. If some guys can step up in doubles and we can get something together there, that would really help.

Yeah I didn't know that Lovrak wasn't back, I thought it was just Marin (Neuhror was a spare - very replaceable). Either way, they picked up another German (Lars Somethingrather) who is now ranked #11 as a freshman, so they could conceivably have 3 top 10 players in their lineup. Also Zgaga is top 50 and they have a couple of mysterious East European "transfers" named Portnov and Kokta who I'm sure have played many years of pro tennis...then again, we have Jerry and Simo, so I guess all is fair.

There's no doubt that Baylor is going to be the team to beat again this year. I don't know anything about Kokta or Portnov, their sophomore transfers. I do know that Shearer, their senior transfer, played #1 at Fresno St last year...I guess he'll play 5 or 6.

I think Lovrak transferred to Pepperdine. Rumor was that he was dismissed from the team, so that's why he's gone.

Baylor is playing in the Rice tourney this weekend too, so we might find out some more about these other guys.

Our guys will not be participating in the Rice Tournament. I think the Rice coach is still mad at Cass for splitting up Lester and Ante last year against him. They are at some other tournament though, in Dallas I believe.

Good screw Rice I hope we beat them bad this year. I can't stand those idiots.

Is there any chance that the Baylor men won't go undefeated this year???

sure...if they all get deported

Baylor has won 31 consecutive Big 12 matches. Last time they lost one, Texas beat them in the championship match of the Big 12 tournament on 4/28/01.

whoop-dee-****ing-doo for baylor

Baylor is unbeatable.

I would be surprised if any team beats them this year.

i'm guessing the ncaa compliance committee is the only squad that has a chance.[/rolling eyes]

back into the top 10, where we belong.

meanwhile, the tsips are holding down the #4 spot in the state. lets's hear it for those horns, eh, rocket?

While it is certainly better to be ranked number 10 than number 15(last week), these rankings are very fluid at this time of year. We have a solid team with great upside potential if we stay healthy and happy, but this will be a long hard season, and we will get many chances to prove ourselves along the way. Jerry certainly is a most impressive player, and I think that he will be a real team leader for us before he through. Ante had a tough match against Drew Hoskins from USC, but he has been a stalwart ever since he stepped foot on campus, and I don't think that will change this year. Simo and Yev should be solid at the middle lineup and when you have Brett and Bryan at five and six, you can't be in too bad of shape. I was pleased with the early doubles production, and if that phase of the game progresses, we may well be a top ten team. Time will tell, but we are off to a solid start.

Simo has really looked lost in doubles so far. I would prefer to see Yev or even Matt Bain get a shot in the lineup.

yev will not play doubles this year unless there is an injury. not a good doubles player, but bain is good at doubles and should be given a chance to play

Well Simo is not a good doubles player either. I was never impressed with his doubles play last year and he hasn't improved any this year. I don't see how Yev could be any worse. But I do think that Matt looked good in doubles and I'd like to see him get some playing time.

Everybody would like to see Mathew get some court time. I am sure it will happen sooner or later. Truly one of the best kids we have on the team. As of now, however, Zach is playing his best tennis and seems to have an upper hand at three doubles. Two doubles has not gotten the job done, and I'm sure if this continues Coach Cass will consider all available options to get the best six guys on the court with the best chances to win. As everyone knows, doubles last year was an adventure in "neverland" and we battled every match to try to get something going. We finally seemed to do some better toward the end of the season, but our inability to play better doubles cost us some earlier matches, and sent us to Virginia, instead of hosting. The fact that we won in Virginia gave us a decent spot in the Big Tournament, but it probably should never have come to that point. In any event the coaches are working hard with doubles, and it will be interesting to see what the lineup looks like after the trip to San Diego.

imagine how riduclous dubs would have been had we not lost lester and marvin...ante/lester, brett/marvin, jerry/zack. that would have been hard for anyone to compete with.

as it is, i think brett/ante will be fine at 1, and zack and wooten are a solid 3. i would really like to see bain and jerry play 2 together, because bain is an awesome doubles guy. and there is no excuse for jerry ever being on a losing doubles team. i almost want to see him play with zack at 3, and secure the point with wins at 1 and 3 (i'm sure we would catch hell for that though).

either way, we don't have a lot of time to screw around with doubles teams. conference matches are still over a month away, but the non-conference matches between now and then are gonna be downright brutal. the great thing about cass making such a hard schedule is that the guys are challenged immediately, and almost every win is a stepping stone to a higher ranking. the bad thing is, there is virtually no margin for error, especially in dubs. in our next 10 matches we play teams that are currently ranked 8, 9, 11, 12, 24, 26, 31, and 47. luckily, all of those are at home except cal, pepperdine, and the rematch with usc (i like our chances against cal and pepperdine, who are in semi-down years, and think usc will be the closest match that we have between now and conference).

and things don't get much easier when conference starts. but that's a long way off, so here's to an easy match against utsa and beating the hell outta lsu.

[This message has been edited by txag731 (edited 2/10/2005 1:56p).]

What's the deal with the light schedule? I know weather has been a factor, but I am in Dallas and SMU has played about 9 matches, and we have only 3. This is relatively young group that needs to build confidence and cohesion. Will be interesting to see how they respond to the upcoming tough schedule.
BTW, what did happen to Marvin? It is a blow to lose him and Lester.

weather has been a factor on 2 separate occasions, and we were not invited/did not attend 2 tournaments that we have played in in the past. today's matches have been moved indoors to the tennis center off of 6 in bryan, with the men starting at 12 and the women starting at 3:30 or later.

i don't think marvin made the grades. i'm guessing it was a huge jump for him going from basicly a tennis-only lifestyle back home to having to pass classes at a top tier university and compete for a spot on a top ten team. would have been hard for anyone to do, IMO. i wish him all the best.