Sports > September 20, 2007

By Connor Swarbrick | Contributing writer

No. 4 sophomore Steve Forman, ranked the number three player in California, number four in the southwest and the 19th-ranked player nationally by tennisrecruting.net, joined the Deacons last spring after graduating early from high school.

Now he is focused on being an integral part of a winning team.

The team traveled to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville Sept. 14-16 and Forman won his first match before dropping his second to a higher-ranked player.

Forman, however, is looking forward to the 2007 Polo Ralph Lauren All-American Tennis Championships in Tulsa, Okla.

It was recently announced that he, along with senior Mariusz Adamski and junior Cory Parr, would compete in the event. Head Coach Jeff Zinn saw this as a good opportunity for Forman.

“He is a very important part of the success of our team this year, so we need to give him this opportunity, especially because he missed the fall last year and came to school early,” Zinn said.

“We owe him this to try to get his ranking up. He is the highest-ranked junior we have ever had. He deserves this shot.”

While, Forman says his forte is his serve and his forehand, Zinn thinks it is much more than his physical stature or on-court skills. Zinn has high expectations for Forman and the team.

He said the team’s philosophy is to simply keep improving every year, and while the team did very well last year, he thinks they are poised to make a tournament run again.

“This team is scary good. Last year we were expected to win with the team we had, but this team is going to surprise a lot of people,” Zinn said.

The team has improved drastically in Zinn’s tenure. Entering his 11th season, Zinn has turned the men’s tennis team into a perennial Top 25 team. They have appeared in six consecutive NCAA tournaments and the Deacons’ top five career leaders in singles wins and the top six career leaders in doubles victories all played under Zinn.

While Forman has aspirations of playing professional tennis someday, he is currently focused on the Southern Intercollegiates, which will be held Sept. 12-24 in Athens, Ga.