Whitman Collegiate Tournament
September 18  2004 in Walla Walla, Washington
 

Due to an inclement weather forecast for the weekend, organizers, Whitman College had to scrap their 8th Annual Fall Tournament for the men and the women. In place of the regular individual format  tournament consisting of singles and doubles, a team tennis type tournament was implemented for the schools who wanted to chance the weather (PLU, LCSC and Whitman - men). All of the women's teams pulled out of the tournament.

Basically, two players make up a team to play two singles and a doubles. The team that wins the most number of games advances to the next round while the losing team drops into the back draw. This format combined a variety of rules to shorten the matches but yet maintained enough of the feel of match play. If you care to read any of the rules it will appear at the end of this page.

The Warrior men advanced four teams to the quarter finals but only one made it through to the finals. Dimitri Verabyou and Ara Sarkissian (LC's #1) lost their match (by a nine game differential after singles) to the dynamic duo of Matt Larimore and Ricky Butenko from Pacific Lutheran University. "Right now, those two PLU players are the best of the small college players in the Pacific Northwest". En route to the finals, they defeated PLU#3 team in the quarters and Whitman's #1 team in the semi-finals.

Borja Molas and Ari Zaslow (LC's #2 team)
defeated Whitman's #3 team
lost to PLU#1
defeated PLU #3

Phil McKeague and Andy Hunt (LC's #3)
bye first round
lost by two games to PLU #4 team
lost to Whitman's #3 team

Zach Stotland and Kai Fong (LC's #4)
defeated PLU #2
lost to Whitman #1

Next action for the men will be the Gonzaga Tournament October 1st weekend. That will be an individual tournament with players from Gonzaga, University of Idaho and Eastern Washington University.



 

Each singles match started at 2-2 using the ad plus one scoring (the first deuce point is played out but the second deuce point is sudden death). If the match was tied at one set a piece, a match tie-breaker was played. In doubles, it was one pro set to eight games. There were a couple of team tennis elements that made it more exciting (the no let rule for the serve and the comeback rule - the team that is behind in games after the singles can make a comeback by winning the doubles pro-set and then continuing to make up the game differential, and if they manage to even up the score, a match tie-breaker would be used). A few matches exercised the comeback rule but non of the comeback teams could force the match breakers as some of the differentials were as many as nine games.

 

The Warrior men headed to Whitman College