University Southern California Trojans
National Champs Transition To Individual Play
May 25, 2011 | Men's Tennis
May 25, 2011
Complete Release in PDF Format 
NCAA TOURNAMENT CENTRAL & LIVE SCORING
SINGLES SCENE
USC is well represented again in the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships, which kick off May 25 at Stanford's Taube Tennis Center. Making his third straight appearance in the NCAA Singles draw -- and scoring a high seed again for this year's journey -- is junior Steve Johnson. Joining Johnson in the mix on the men's singles side are junior Daniel Nguyen and freshman Ray Sarmiento. Carrying a 26-match singles win streak into this week's NCAA Team Round of 16, top-seeded Pac-10 singles and doubles champion Steve Johnson is looking to become the first Trojan since 1996 to win the NCAA singles title. Ranked #1 in the nation, Johnson totes a 42-3 record into NCAA Singles competition. He reached the NCAA Singles first round last year and the NCAA doubles Round of 16 with teammate Robert Farah. As a freshman, Johnson reached the Round of 16 in both NCAA singles and doubles playing with Farah again. Making his first appearance in the NCAA individual field of play and fresh off serving up match-clinching singles wins in USC's team semifinal and championship victories, Nguyen holds a #44 national singles ranking to make himself eligible for competition in the NCAA Men's Singles bracket. In his freshman season, Sarmiento currently ranks #47 in the nation in singles and is also through to NCAA Men's Singles play as the third Trojan in that bracket this year.
DOUBLES DUTY
The Trojans also has one doubles team prepped for action in the NCAA Men's Doubles Championships to go along with their jobs on the singles side of the game. Steve Johnson and Ray Sarmiento pair back up as the nation's #25 pair lined up for duty in the NCAA Men's Doubles draw.
TROJANS MAKE IT THREE STRAIGHT
USC pulled off yet another championship upset win and tacked up its third straight NCAA title with an incredibly gutsy and tense 4-3 victory over top-seeded and undefeated Virginia. The Trojans got ahead 3-0 in the match, but the remaining matches were roiled in three-setters. Coming through with the championship clincher -- for the second year in a row -- was junior Daniel Nguyen, who pulled off a 7-5, 0-6, 6-4 thriller to wrap up the Trojans' win over the Cavaliers on Tuesday afternoon at Stanford's Taube Tennis Stadium. USC wraps up 2011 with a 27-2 overall record. The Trojans were heaving an 18-match win streak into the title match, where No. 2 USC was pitted against No. 1 Virginia, which carried a 33-0 record into the final. But the top seeds, for the third straight season, ran into another determined USC squad. This time the teams would clash in the title match, and it was an all-out gut-wrenching battle. When the dust settled, Nguyen's clincher on court three had locked in USC for a third straight NCAA championship - the program's 19th overall NCAA men's tennis championship and the university's 115th national team title. With the win, men's tennis matches a three-in-a-row championship precedent set most recently at Troy by men's water polo, which won its third straight with the 2010 crown. The last men's tennis team to take three in a row was Stanford, which won four straight titles from 1995-98.
NCAA NOTES
This year's NCAA appearance was the Trojans' fifth straight trip to the postseason and 33rd overall. With this year's crown along with NCAA titles in 2010 in Athens, Ga., and 2009 in College Station, Texas, the Trojans continue to lead the nation with 19 national championships all-time. The 2011 team title run bumped up USC's all-time NCAA record to 80-29. In the past three seasons now, USC has upset top-seeded Virginia en route to winning the title. With a No. 2 seed this season, the Trojans didn't get a shot at the top seed until the title match, but USC put another upset in the books with the 4-3 victory to claim its third straight national championship. USC's runs to the 2009 and 2010 national championships began with the Trojans holding No. 8 and No. 5 seeds, respectively.
FOLLOW ALONG
Live scoring and video from the NCAA Championships in Stanford will be available at http://www.streamingtennis.com/Cardinal/livescoreboard1.html.
CAMPBELL/ITA RANKING UPDATES
The latest 2011 Campbell/ITA national rankings were released May 2, with the back-to-back national champs ranked No. 2 in the nation. New individual rankings also were released May 2, with four Trojans ranked in the top-50 in singles and three doubles teams in the mix. Pac-10 singles champ Steve Johnson remains at the head of the pack as the nation's #1 singles player. Senior captain Jaak Poldma is next in line at #38 in singles ahead of two more Trojans: #44 Daniel Nguyen and #47 Ray Sarmiento. In doubles, USC's ranked teams are #22 Poldma/Sundling, #25 Pac-10 Doubles champs Johnson/Sarmiento and #80 Johnson/Nguyen.
PAC-10 TEAM CHAMPS
USC's 4-3 win over rival UCLA in the conference finale wrapped up an undefeated Pac-10 season for the Trojans. That perfect 6-0 finish was the first for USC since 1987. Almost equally significant was the fact that the win snapped a six-year skid of the Trojans falling to the Bruins in their annual Pac-10 match. It's USC's third Pac-10 title in the past four seasons, but the first outright championship in that stretch. Overall, USC has now claimed 32 Pac-10 titles -- shared and solo combined.
PAC-10 POWER
Recently named the NCAA Championships's Most Outstanding Player, Steve Johnson also has made a home for himself in the Pac-10 history books, becoming the third Trojan in the past four years to sweep at the Pac-10 Championships. The 2011 Pac-10 Player of the Year, Johnson breezed through the 2011 Pac-10 Singles bracket with nonstop straight-set wins, capped with redemption in the title match to claim the Pac-10 singles crown. A few hours later, he was rounding out his day by holding aloft the Pac-10 Doubles trophy as well, joining with freshman Ray Sarmiento to capture the doubles championship in Ojai, Calif. In doing so, Johnson joins Robert Farah (2010) and Kaes Van't Hof (2008) as the latest Trojans to make a Pac-10 sweep with doubles and singles titles in Ojai. Johnson paired up with Farah last year in doubles play to claim the 2010 crown, and this year the junior successfully defended that title with teammate Ray Sarmiento by his side. Johnson and Sarmiento put the finishing touches on a winning day with a resounding 6-1, 6-2 championship win over UCLA's Hardie/Inbar in the title match. Johnson had opened the day with a bigtime win in the singles championship match. There, he faced rival Bradley Klahn of Stanford for the fifth time this season. Klahn could claim a couple big wins over Johnson in previous tournament title matches, most recently at the 2011 Sherwood Collegiate Championship and most notoriously in the 2009 Pac-10 Singles Championship match. But Johnson had pinned up three consecutive straight-set wins over Klahn in their last three meetings, and the USC junior also was toting a 24-match singles win streak into the 2011 singles bout. Both streaks are still intact. Johnson eked out a tiebreaker in the first set, then flexed some muscle against Klahn in the second and powered to a 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory to stand tall as USC's newest Pac-10 singles champion and set the stage for a dominant day for the Trojans.
2011 TROJAN FINISHES IN OJAI
A look at the Trojans' runs at this year's Pac-10 Championships:
Steve Johnson -- won singles championship
Emilio Gomez -- reached singles quarterfinals
Ray Sarmiento -- reached singles quarterfinals
Daniel Nguyen -- reached singles Round of 16
Peter Lucassen -- reached singles Round of 32
Johnson/Sarmiento -- won doubles championship
Gomez/Nguyen -- reached doubles Round of 16
PAC-10 PRODIGIES
Not only did the Trojans dominate team play in the Pac-10 this season, the individual awards list also is weighed heavily in USC's favor. The Trojans claimed eight Pac-10 Player of the Week awards on the year, spreading the wealth among five different players who put together dominating weeks for USC. Jaak Poldma, Steve Johnson and Ray Sarmiento each picked up the honor on two different occasions, joined by Emilio Gomez and Peter Lucassen's first career Player of the Week awards this year.
TOP GUN
Entering the NCAA Singles Championships, junior #1 Steve Johnson now holds a 42-3 overall singles record, including a current 29-match winning streak over some of the country's stiffest competition to remain atop the latest ITA/Campbell National Rankings as the No. 1 player in men's collegiate tennis. Johnson came into the spring ranked #6 overall and his move to #1 put him back in the top slot that he also held during parts of the 2010 season. Johnson's three losses have come against the country's current #3, #9, and #13 players. Since the start of the spring slate, Johnson has gone 33-1 in singles play and compiled wins in his last 29 matches. During his win streak, Johnson has secured wins over 11 top-20 players, including three impressive straight-set victories over Pac-10 rival Bradley Klahn of Stanford to avenge the Trojan's only spring loss.
RAY GETS THE SPOTLIGHT
Freshman Ray Sarmiento pinned up two big straight-set wins in USC victories over No. 8 Stanford and No. 12 Cal to record his first Pac-10 Player of the Week award. Now with his second selection under his cap and a place on the All-Pac-10 Second Team, he's ranked #47 in the nation and enters the NCAA Singles Championships with a 34-9 overall record.
CHAMPIONSHIP EXPERIENCE
This year, half the USC ladder knows what it takes to win two NCAA Championships, and five players return from the 2010 title-winning team. Senior Jaak Poldma and juniors Steve Johnson and Daniel Nguyen each hold a pair of national championship rings. Senior Peter Lucassen and sophomore JT Sundling picked up their first last year, when USC finished as champs with a 25-3 overall record after taking second in the Pac-10 at 5-1. Altogether, it's a pool of experience that USC head coach and 2010 ITA National Coach of the Year Peter Smith believes can make a real run at defending the Trojans' back-to-back titles.
