by Tyler Gadbois
The No. 1 seeded USC Trojans won their fourth consecutive national title yesterday at The University of Georgia’s tennis stadium in Athens where they downed the University of Virginia. USC was down 1-0 after losing the doubles point when thunder and lightning forced them to indoor courts to continue the match. Head Coach Peter Smith said that it was a weird equation because UVA, who is a perennial contender, is known as an indoor team, but, at the same time USC had won the National Indoor Championship this year.
Smith said, “I thought it was just going to come down to who had the best team and the most guts.” He added that he thought losing the doubles point may have actually helped the Trojans. “We were pressing in dubs and we wanted it too bad,” he said. After going indoors, USC’s No. 1 powerhouse Steve Johnson and No. 4 Emilio Gomez both won easily: 6-3, 6-2 and 6-4, 6-2 respectively. Johnson’s victory was his 67th consecutive win.
“I just told the guys to play their butts of and whatever happens, happens,” Smith said.
USC then won at the No. 2 spot but lost at the No. 3 spot. It all came down to freshman Yannick Hanfmann from Karlsruhe, Germany who was able to clinch the title for USC 7-6 in a third set tiebreaker. The overall score was 6-4, 2-6, 7-6.
“In the final set Yannick saved break point after break point,” Smith said. “The other guy was serving for the match but couldn’t come through; then Yannik seized the moment.”
Looking forward to next year regarding a 5-peat, Smith said that anything is possible but that it is not probable. No team has ever won five titles in a row. USC won four in a row from 1966-1969 and Stanford won from 1995-1998. USC is losing their two leaders, Seniors Steve Johnson and Daniel Nguyen who will have graduated.
When Inside Tennis asked Smith whether he was surprised to win four straight he said that when he first got the job his boss said he would win 3 NCAA titles within 10 years and that “you’re at USC, there’s a different standard here.”
“We have made the most out of our fortune, it’s not just the team it’s the trainers the doctors, it’s everything. It wouldn’t have happened without all the pieces being in place,” he said. Overall USC has won 20 National Titles and Stanford is just behind with 18.
