The NCAA News - News and Features

May 11, 1998

Division I Men's Tennis

Stanford looks for fourth straight

Event: 1998 Division I Men's Tennis Championships.

Overview: Stanford is seeking its fourth straight team title. Senior Paul Goldstein hopes to finish his college career with four championship rings, and highly ranked teammates include Ryan Wolters and twins Bob and Mike Bryan. All four are potential individual champions in this year's tournament .... Georgia will be seeking victory at home after losing to Stanford in the 1997 finals. Top players for the Bulldogs include seniors Steven Baldas and John Roddick, the top-ranked doubles team in the nation with a 21-5 record. Baldas, who is 22-13, is currently ranked among the country's top 20 singles players. Roddick has tallied a 24-9 record in singles matches .... LSU, 20-1, relies on sophomore Michal Chmela, ranked second in the nation in the ITA rankings. He and partner Tom Hand are ranked sixth in doubles .... Mississippi State will try to block Stanford's return to the top behind senior Thomas Dupre', who is ranked seventh after falling from the top spot in the preseason. Dupre' partners with Matthieu Ballay for a 19-6 doubles record. Simon Larose, 33-14 overall, is No. 2 for the Bulldogs .... Junior Paul Martin and sophomore Nick Crowell pace Texas. Martin, a two-time all-American, reached last year's quarterfinals in doubles and singles .... Mississippi is battling for a national crown behind Sebastien DeChaunac, the Rebels' No. 1 singles and doubles player. DeChaunac is 21-6 overall and ranked fifth in the nation. DeChaunac and partner Martin Sjoqvist are 15-8 in doubles .... Pepperdine is fresh off an eighth consecutive West Coast Conference championship, and will contend behind the fifth-ranked doubles team of Kelly Gullett and Robert Lindstedt.

Field: Eight regional tournaments each will include a minimum of six and a maximum of eight teams. The eight regional winners will advance to the national championships, joining eight teams selected in advance of the regionals. The individual championships will include 64 singles players and 32 doubles teams. A maximum of 68 players in singles and doubles will be selected from institutions other than those competing in the team championship. Each region will nominate four singles players and two doubles teams for the individual championships.

Dates and sites: Regional tournaments will be May 15-17. The national championships will be May 23-26, and the singles and doubles championships will be May 27-31 in Athens, Georgia.

Television coverage: The championships team final will be broadcast tape-delayed by ESPN at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, June 3.

Information/results: Individual and team championships results are available on the NCAA Fax-on-Demand System. The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915); request numbers are 1529 for dates and sites, 1530 for bracket/schedule, 5219 for qualifiers, 5220 through 5223 for team results, and 5224 through 5228 for individual results. Regional and championships results also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Championships results will be published in the May 25 (regional tournaments) and June 8 (finals) issues of The NCAA News.