After an extended hiatus, the No. 9 Stanford men’s tennis team will return to competition today at the Sherwood Cup held in Westlake Village, Calif. Although the Cardinal last took the court in team competition in November against the University of Hawaii, the first event of this quarter is an individual tournament.

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Stanford tennis is sending seven to compete at the Sherwood Cup. After the tournament, the Cardinal will face a full slate of dual matches, as they take on Boise State, USC and UCLA. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/6680
Alvin Chow

Stanford tennis is sending seven to compete at the Sherwood Cup. After the tournament, the Cardinal will face a full slate of dual matches, as they take on Boise State, USC and UCLA.

Stanford will be sending seven players to compete in the singles draw of 32, and three Cardinal pairs will participate in the doubles draw of 16. Other schools competing in the Sherwood Cup include top teams such as No. 2 Baylor, No. 4 UCLA, No. 10 Pepperdine and Southern California.

In 2006, sophomore Matt Bruch advanced to the finals of both the singles and the doubles draw before eventually falling to players from Baylor and Florida State. His teammate and doubles partner, James Pade, advanced to the semifinals before falling to Bruch.

Last year’s performance showed marked improvement over Stanford’s past results in the tournament. The Cardinal were able to advance three players past the first-round last year, improving the team’s first-round record to 5-15 over the past three years. Prior to that, the team had only won two first-round matches to 10 dropped matches in the previous two years.

Head Coach John Whitlinger does not attribute the difficulty Stanford has had with the first-round to the fact that the tournament is held the very first weekend of school.

“I don’t want to use that as an excuse,” Whitlinger said. “Everybody’s in that same boat. Our focus and goal down there is to just get a little better every day and just get matches in. We need to figure out what we do well and what we need to work on.”

Stanford will send seniors Eric McKean and Dave Ryan, sophomores Blake Muller and Jeff Zeller and freshmen Kevin Kaiser, Paul Morrissey and Richard Wire to compete in the singles draw. McKean and Wire made the strongest showings for Stanford at the ITA Northwest Regional back in October. Both advanced to the final 16 before narrowly dropping tight three-setters.

McKean and Wire, Kaiser and Zeller and Morrissey and Muller will form the three doubles teams. Morrissey and Muller checked into the most recent ITA rankings at No. 32. The pair advanced to the finals of their first tournament together in October at the ITA Northwest Regional.

While Stanford has struggled in recent years to pick up the doubles point, Whitlinger is optimistic about the potential for doubles pairings this year.

“[Assistant Coach Dave Hodge and I] are really excited about our doubles this year,” Whitlinger said. “We’ve got a bunch of guys who can play doubles. We just have to figure out the right combinations and maybe do some switching around during the year.

“We’re going to have a few teams that are a little untested, but we had an untested team get to the finals of the [ITA Northwest] Regional,” Whitlinger continued. “Blake and Paul had a really good win over [Alex] Slovic and [Daniel] Chu of Washington. We’ve got a lot of options, and we’re really looking forward to doubles this year.”

Following this weekend’s competition in the Sherwood Cup, Stanford will not waste any time before jumping into its dual match season. The Cardinal take on Boise State on Jan. 27 in the first home match of 2007 before traveling to Los Angeles to face the Bruins and the Trojans. A week later, the team flies to Waco to take on Baylor before competing in the National Team Indoors later that week.

“We’re definitely hitting the ground running,” Whitlinger said. “Guys are really looking forward to it and can’t wait to get going.”