The University of Utah and Brigham Young University will go into the Mountain West Tennis Championships this week with nothing to lose. Unfortunately, one of them will — early.
In the opening round on Thursday at the Snowbird Canyon Racquet Club, the No. 4 seeded Cougars will play the No. 5 seeded Utes.
The winner will go on to play the No. 1 seeded, and well rested, Aztecs of San Diego State.
The wild card for both Utah and BYU is thin air. How powerful will the powers be at 5,000 feet instead of sea level?
The tournament, back to the friendlier six-team format instead of the tremendously cumbersome format with 16 teams under the old WAC, will finish on Saturday.
It will open Thursday at 10 a.m. at the CRC with No. 3 University of Nevada-Las Vegas playing No. 6 Air Force. BYU and Utah will play at 2 p.m. San Diego and No. 2 New Mexico have automatic byes.
Both the Utes and the Cougars have struggled this season.
The only conference win for Utah was against Air Force. "But all of the matches have been close," said F.D. Robbins, the men's head coach. "Then three of our matches were played at sea level. It will be different here, at this altitude."
Robbins believes the key point will come in doubles. "The team that wins the doubles point, I think, will win the match. It's going to be hard for one team to win four of six singles," he added.
Under the college format, each of the three doubles teams plays an eight-point pro set. The school winning two of the three doubles earns one point. Each of the singles matches is then worth one point, for a possible seven points.
Jim Osborne, head coach of the BYU men's team, said that despite records, the conference is well balanced.
"Anyone of the teams could win this. I think this is a wide-open conference race. No one should be considered an automatic winner," he added.
"I think we will be strong at the top — one through three. If we can get some wins out of the lower spots, we'll do well. There are so many good players now that a team needs depth to win."
Playing at Nos. 1 and 2 for BYU will be Gert Vilms, a junior from Tallin, Estonia, and Carlos Lozano, a sophomore from Tlalnepantla, Mexico. Vilms and Lozano are ranked No. 26 in the country in doubles.
Matt Stohl, a sophomore from Sandy, is expected to play No. 6 for the Cougars.
In the Utah lineup, Kevin Zenger, a senior who played his high school tennis at Skyline High, will play No. 2 singles.
Playing No. 1 will be David Mercier, a junior from Quebec, Canada.
Also on the Utah team is Tyler Poulson, who played at Cottonwood High and is still on the comeback road following knee surgery.
Tickets are $10 for the three days of the tournament or $4 per session.
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