Men’s tennis is warming up for the spring season through a series of tournaments around the country. USC will side step across the Southwest back to California beginning Thursday where a slew of players will enter the draws at the Pepperdine-hosted ITA Southwest Regional Championships. 

“It’s one of the more important events of the fall,” said senior Lodewijk Weststrate. “It’s where all the best players of the Southern California region come together. Eventually, the winner or finalist go[es] to the fall nationals.” 

So far, the Trojans have competed at the Longhorn Invitational in Texas and the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, where just three USC players took to the baseline — No. 22 junior Peter Makk, No. 63 junior Wojtek Marek and Weststrate. Makk made the round of 16, and the team as a whole took home a 10-4 singles record, having defeated four top 100 players.

Texas was a difficult outing as each of the Trojans’ opponents had made runs for the NCAA Championship last year. Although USC finished the tournament 5-12 in singles and 3-4 in doubles, junior Karl Lee proved himself to be an asset to the team.

“[Lee] had an outstanding summer,” said Head Coach Brett Masi. “He’s a kid who doesn’t want to quit. He’s out there for every point and he loves that fight and competition.”

Lee has defeated Arizona’s No. 92 graduate student Nick Lagaev and Georgia’s Niels Ratiu. Lee and Makk also notched a doubles win against the Texas duo of senior Evin McDonald and redshirt freshman Lucas Brown.

Entering Malibu, the Trojans will be the defending champions in both singles and doubles.

Makk has been a rock for the Trojans since he first put on the USC polo. He won the Southwest Championship title last season and aims to become the first player to exit the tournament on top in back-to-back years.

“[Makk’s] got more of a target on his back because everyone wants to beat the guy who won it last year,” said Masi. “I’ve already told him this week, let’s just go out there and play point to point, match to match. Happen as they may, hopefully, you’re there at the end of the week playing for the title again to defend it.”

In the past month, Makk fell to Texas’ No. 17 Micah Braswell and Georgia’s unranked Ryan Colby. He’s beaten a number of top 100 opponents such as Arizona’s No. 50 Gustaf Strom, who’s entered the Southwest Championship draw, Florida State’s No. 55 Youcef Rihane and Texas’ No. 45 Jonah Braswell.

At last year’s tournament, no USC singles player, aside from Makk, survived the round of 16. The Trojans are eager to meet each other at the end of the draw and contest Makk for the title.

“Honestly, it’d be fun to play my teammate in the quarterfinals,” said Weststrate. “I’d rather play him than someone else because that means we were both doing good.”

USC has three duos entered into the doubles draw. The Trojans have three doubles victories but failed to qualify for the main doubles draw at the ITA Championships. 

Struggling when two players share the court is a new experience for the Trojans. Graduated student Bradley Frye and graduate Stefan Dostanic received the Pac-12 Doubles Team of the Year honor the past two consecutive seasons. Masi is using the preseason to determine who will continue the duo’s legacy following Frye’s graduation.

“Doubles is the one thing that we control. We put them into a system and how we want to play,”Masi said. “[Graduate student Samuel Rubell] and Wojtek last year had some really good wins and they had a really good win this last tournament … there’s still a bit of a question mark of what they can and can’t do.”

This week’s tournament will be one of the Trojans’ first looks at esteemed Pac-12 opponents such as UCLA, Arizona State and Arizona. The Wildcats have five players listed in the top 100 entered into the draw. Pepperdine’s freshman Edward Winter — ranked as the No. 5 freshman heading into the preseason — will be competing this weekend as well.

“We play probably 75% of these teams throughout the year,” Masi said. “It’ll be good to get a head-to-head match, so we can see where we’re at compared to [other teams] when we get to play them in the spring.”

Masi is looking forward to providing his players with more on court experience and seeing how fall practice translates into match play.

“We go to these events so we can get our guys out from hitting with each other every single day,”Masi said. “A lot of it is just good competition. Also, this helps them towards their individual rankings at the end of the year.”

This week, the Trojans will work to hold onto their titles at the ITA Southwest Regional Championships at Pepperdine University in Malibu. The tournament begins Thursday and, for players who advance to the final rounds of the tournament, it will continue into Monday.