Trojans kick off spring season at Sherwood Cup

After a 2012-2013 campaign that saw the Trojans advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament, USC’s men’s tennis team heads into the first tournament of the spring season ranked No. 4 in the nation.

The Trojans will be competing at the Sherwood Collegiate Cup in Westlake, Calif. this weekend, facing off against players from schools including UCLA, Stanford, Baylor and Loyola Marymount.

“It’s a pretty special tournament, especially this year because we have three teams that’ll probably be top-five in the country,” head coach Peter Smith said. “UCLA, USC and Baylor are all great teams, and then Stanford is also there. They’re historically a really great team too.”

The No. 1 player in the nation, UCLA’s Clay Thompson, is the top seed in the tournament, and might face USC’s junior Eric Johnson in the second round should they both advance. Johnson is unseeded in the tournament and will face Mate Zsiga of Baylor in the first round.

In last year’s Sherwood Collegiate Cup, then-junior Ray Sarmiento took home the singles title, while Johnson and then-freshman Max de Vroome were runners-up in doubles competition, falling to a team from UCLA in the championship match.

Due to their success in the fall season, during which they won the ITA Southwest Regional doubles championship and traveled to the ITA National Indoor Championships, Johnson and de Vroome earned the second seed at the tournament.

Smith says this weekend’s tournament is important for the team because it gives the players a chance to get in a lot of practice in one weekend.

Junior Roberto Quiroz, who enters the spring season ranked No. 113 in the nation in singles, is excited to get back into the tennis environment. Quiroz’s impressive fall season earned him the sixth seed on the singles side of the tournament.

“I’m playing singles and doubles,” Quiroz said. “I’m playing doubles with [freshman] Connor Farren who just got into the school … and so I’m excited to play with him and I think it’s going to be a good [weekend] for the team.”

Even though they are playing together for the first time at USC, Quiroz and Farren are slotted fourth on the doubles side.

The team’s two highest-ranked players, Sarmiento (No. 10) and junior Yannick Hanfmann (No. 32) will not be taking part in this weekend’s tournament. The pair, who each had success in their fall tournaments, are both “a little banged up,” according to Smith. Still, the rest of the spring season looks promising for the Trojans.

“This is a very young team,” Sarmiento said. “I’m looking forward to competing with them on the court.”

Indeed, the start of the spring season hits off with a set of fresh faces, as three of the team’s freshmen are participating in the weekend’s event.

“They are dying to prove themselves,” Smith said.

One such freshman is spring enrollee Farren, who will be participating in the tournament after practicing with the team for less than a week.

“I hope to just get used to the college environment and to support all my teammates as much as I can,” Farren said.

Farren earned the No. 8 seed in this tournament.

The Trojans are accustomed to being at the top of the rankings, having won four consecutive national championships from 2009-2012. Still, they insist that their current No. 4 ranking is the last thing on their minds.

“It’s something that other people look at, but how my team is doing, the culture of my team, all of that stuff is the stuff that matters,” Smith said. “It’s not the first ranking, it’s the last ranking that matters.”

As the new season kicks off, there’s only one number the team is concerned about.

“Our ultimate focus is what our ranking is going to be after NCAAs, which is No. 1,” Sarmiento said.