Tuesday, March 02, 2004 Men’s tennis uses great season start to inspire victories With two more commanding wins, the men’s tennis team eyes the nation’s top five, but wants bigger crowds. By Mary Hollis Skiff Staff Junior Fabrizio Sestini wants the TCU community’s attention. Fresh off defeating both Charlotte and Louisville 4-0 this past weekend, en route to winning the Conference USA Shootout title, the No. 6 men’s tennis team remained perfect at 8-0, the program’s best start since the Frogs began the 1986 season 9-0. And Sestini says he hopes the team’s great start to the spring season will get more fans to come out and support TCU’s best athletic product. “(The C-USA Shootout victory) shows to everybody we are a really good team to beat and we just keep on abusing everybody,” Sestini said. “Right now we are the best sporting program at TCU and this just shows that we are really competitive and that we would like more people coming to the games. It would be great for students to come and see us.” Junior Jacob Martin said the team’s successes this spring are just the beginning of its many tough upcoming matches, because now everyone will come at TCU hard. “I think it’s very important that we got this win because Louisville is a pretty scrappy team and they went after us,” Martin said. “Every team is now going to go after us because they see that we can do really well.” Martin also said the tournament was a good win for the entire team mentally. He said all of the teams had good players but that from here on out, every match will be more difficult as opponents will be looking to end the perfect season. “It’s going be tough to stay undefeated,” he said. “Everybody is going to come out every time worse and worse against us so we are going to have to work harder.” Assistant coach Cory Hubbard said the team was pleased with the tournament’s outcome and that it was nice to win it on their home courts. “We did what we were supposed to do, being the top team,” Hubbard said. “We didn’t play our best, but we got through it, which gives us the confidence that we can beat these teams not playing our best. We will take the win any way we get it.” TCU next takes the court to face SMU 2 p.m. Thursday in Fort Worth. Ty Halasz/Staff Photographer Senior Hector Almada returns a serve from the Gustafsson/Nicodim team in doubles play against Louisville in the C-USA Shootout Sunday afternoon.   credits TCU Daily Skiff ©2004

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