Men’s tennis continues streak

Coming off of last week’s major win over No. 23Cal-Berkley, the Mustang tennis team continued the winning streakwith Thursday’s 6-1 victory over Wichita State.

The team has won seven of its past eight matches with its onlyloss to No. 3 Baylor.

There were excellent performances from doubles partners HendrickSoderberg and Johan Brunstrom at the one spot, while GwinyaiChingoka and Paul McNaughton held the two spot. Peter Oredsson andFederico Murgier also followed with strong performances in thethird spot.

The Mustangs started the match off strong by winning all threedoubles matches consecutively.

In singles play, SMU dropped only one match, winning the No. 1,No. 2, No. 3, No. 5 and No. 6 singles.

McNaughton and Chingoka won in straight sets at the No. 2 andNo. 3 singles.

Peter Oredsson and Federico Murgier helped finish off theafternoon with two victories in three sets at No. 5 and No. 6,respectively.

Also winning in the singles, Brunstrom continued to dominate byadding to his impressive victory over the No. 1-ranked BenediktDorsch from Baylor.

“He’s amazing, he’s playing so well,”said Soderberg, Brunstrom’s doubles partner.

“That win was the boost of confidence for Johan;he’s eliminated the unforced errors and is doinggreat,” he said.

Brunstrom — who has been named WAC player of the week fortwo consecutive weeks — said that he wants to continueimproving his return game and finish the season playing well inboth the doubles and singles competitions.

Now that the team has recovered from some early injuries toimpact players like Brunstom, Soderburg and Lucasz Senczyszyn, itis playing at the level that is needed to be one of the best teamsin the nation.

With a competitive schedule including top-10 teams like Baylor,TCU and Texas, the Mustangs look more for valuable experience thanan impressive record.

But this team’s talent is proving to be tough competitionfor these ranked teams.

“This is an important time for us,” head coach CarlNeufeld said. “The way we play at the end of the season ismost important.”

With one more victory under their belt, the Mustangs improve to12-7 overall and 9-1 at home.

So far, the men are on track to reach their preseason goals tobe the best-conditioned team in the NCAA and peak at the end of theseason.

“I’m excited because this is potentially the bestteam I’ve ever coached here at SMU,” Nuefeld said.

The Mustangs are back in action at noon on Sunday, April 11.They play against No. 11-ranked TCU at Haggar Stadium.