PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland men's tennis team opens the 2020 dual season with a pair of home matches this weekend at the Louisiana Pacific Tennis Center. The Pilots will host Portland State on Friday at 10 a.m. and then Idaho on Saturday at 10 a.m.
Live video coverage and
point-by-point scoring of all Pilot tennis home matches are available at
PortlandPilots.com.
The Pilots return a young, but experienced, group of players as all six primary singles players from last year's team are back. Portland's lineup often featured all true freshmen a season ago, highlighted by Sema Pankin at No. 1 singles and doubles. Pankin finished with a 10-8 dual singles record at the top of the lineup.
Eletherios Neos went 11-7 last spring, while Leo Hibi was 10-9 in dual matches. Nicklas Oberg and Issa Yoshida were the other regular freshmen in the lineup and posted solid overall records.
Portland adds some firepower back to the lineup as Carlos Donat was granted a fifth-year medical redshirt to return this season. Donat is 38-10 all-time in dual singles matches and was a member of Portland's 2017 WCC Championship team.
The Pilots added a pair of players in graduate transfer Kostya Nesterenko from Nevada, as well as Dustin Kua from Cal Poly. Nesterenko is expected to make an impact in both singles and doubles after a strong career with the Wolf Pack.
"It doesn't matter what teams you play on opening weekend, you are going to be a bit edgy," Gross said. "On paper we should be in pretty good shape this weekend. Portland State gave us a good test last year and Idaho is a good team, but I feel we are a much improved team from last year. Our expectations are going to be higher this season for sure and that starts right from the get go.
"Health may be the only thing that will keep us from pushing quite a bit farther than we did last year over the course of the season. We just have to stay healthy which is easier said than done for all teams, but last year we seemed to be especially snake bit. Nerves aside, I think everyone is just excited to start competing and try and get in a little bit of a rhythm going into the heavy part of the spring season in a few weeks."
