Sports > January 31, 2008

By Danny Mullins | Contributing writer

Heading into the 2008 spring season, this year’s men’s tennis team has a lot of holes to fill, namely the departure of one of the program’s best players of all time, Todd Paul, who graduated from Wake Forest last year with over 100 career victories.

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Junior Cory Parr prepares to serve the ball during a match. Parr, who holds the No. 1 team spot, will be looked to for leadership this year. (Old Gold & Black file photo)

To fill those massive shoes is junior Cory Parr who played the majority of last season as the No. 2 seed for the Demon Deacons where he went 19-7.

However, he did play as the No. 1 seed for Wake last year and won his only match.

This year, he will be playing virtually all of his matches in that position and he comes into the season ranked by the Intercollegiate Tennis Associate (ITA) as the 64th best player in the country and 8th in the region.

The rest of the team is rounded out by senior co-captains, Charles Sartor and Mariusz Adamski, one junior, Carlos Salmon, sophomores Andrew Brasseaux, Jason Morgenstern and Steve Forman as well as lone freshmen Jonathan Wolff. Everyone should look to see a lot of balanced playing time this year to back up Parr.

Currently, Forman is the man sitting in the same position as Parr was a year ago at the No. 2 seed.

Last year, he played the majority of

his matches as the No. 5 seed, so, it appears that his jump to the No. 2 seed for Wake Forest will be instrumental to their success.

Heading into this season, Wake Forest ranks 15th in the country, being rewarded by the ITA for last years fine performance in the NCAA tournament.

The team kicked off the season in Virginia playing the 43rd ranked William & Mary on Jan. 26 and 38th ranked Old Dominion on Jan. 27. After losing the doubles point to W&M, Wake rallied in the singles play to win five out of those six matches to earn the 5-2 victory.

Parr won has second career match as the No. 1 seed after losing the first 7-5, but then rallying back to take the second set and winning the tie break 10-4.

Those unfamiliar to the workings of college tennis, if the first two sets are split, the two players play a first to 10 tie break.

The lone singles loss on Jan. 26 for Wake Forest belonged to Forman who lost a highly competitive battle to Dominic Pagon.

On Jan. 27, the tennis team headed from Williamsburg to Norfolk, Va., to take on Old Dominion.

This was a relatively easy victory for the team as they rolled to a 6-1 victory.

Parr, Forman, Adamski, Wolff and Morganstern all won their singles matches against Old Dominion.

So, the men’s tennis team earned two important early victories against very solid opponents.

The only negative for the team this weekend is that Parr and Forman who were ranked 21st in the country in doubles lost both of those matches.

Obviously Coach Jeff Zinn seemed a little perplexed by it saying after the weekend matches that “it was a little disheartening, since traditionally doubles has been a strong suit for us.”

The next opponent for the Deacs is the 27th ranked Wisconsin Badgers who come into Winston-Salem Feb. 3 undefeated.

The match is scheduled for 11 a.m., so, for those football fans, you can still support the tennis team and not miss a moment of the Super Bowl.