National Collegiate Tennis Tournament : Weiss, Rossides Don’t Look Back : Players From Pepperdine, Stanford Take Singles Titles

For Eleni Rossides and Robby Weiss, they looked back upon last season as more of a lost season than anything else.

Both athletes spent more time in the doctor’s office than they did on the tennis court last winter and spring. Rossides suffered from stress fractures in both legs.

As for Weiss? You name it. He had it.

First, an infection knocked him out for a month and a half. Then it was a shoulder injury. Finally, just before the NCAA tournament, he broke his thumb and was forced to hit a backhand with one hand rather than two.

“I was just a mess,” he said. “I had no confidence.”

Said Rossides: “Since you can’t do anything about it (stress fracture), I was really worried. I started to realize how much I missed tennis.”

Now, in addition to their injury-filled careers, Rossides and Weiss have formed another bond.

They both won important singles titles here Sunday in the National Collegiate Tennis tournament at Shadow Mountain Resort and Racquet Club. Weiss, a senior at Pepperdine, took the court first and defeated No. 3-seeded Shelby Cannon of Tennessee, 6-3, 6-3.

Then Rossides, a junior at Stanford, followed with a similar performance, beating top-seeded Sonia Hahn of Kentucky, 6-3, 6-3. With Rossides’ victory, the women’s singles title at this event has gone to a Cardinal player for the third time in the last four years.

Unlike former teammate Patty Fendick (last year’s champion), Rossides arrived at the event unseeded and unranked because she played so little last season. However, once Rossides beat No. 4-seeded Karen Shin of Cal in the second round, she knew she was playing well. That sentiment grew stronger after a tough, three-set semifinal victory over teammate Lisa Green, who reached the NCAA individual semifinals in 1987.

In the final, Rossides took a 4-0 lead and managed to hold off a strong rally from Hahn as she cut the deficit to 4-3. Rossides broke at love in the eighth game and held serve to win the first set. Holding to form, the second set was as up and down as the first. Rossides won the first two games. Then, neither player could hold serve until Rossides did, taking a 5-3 lead.

“I did get on a roll and attack and be aggressive,” Rossides said. “Then I’d think it would be time for her to miss and give it to me. But Sonia’s definitely not the type to let up.”

Hahn, who represented the United States in the Pan American Games last summer, is the No. 5-ranked collegiate player in the country and hadn’t lost a set here until the final. With the victory, it appears that Rossides will be ranked in the top 10, if not the top 5 among collegiate players.

The same certainly holds true for the unseeded Weiss as he began his re-emergence last weekend at the Citrus Bowl tournament in Orlando, Fla. There, he defeated several highly ranked players before beating his teammate and No. 2-ranked Andrew Sznajder in the final.

“I had to play Jeff Tarango (of Stanford) in the first round at Florida,” Weiss said. “He had killed me during the summer, and I thought, ‘Well, if I lose again, I’ll keep my losing streak going.’ But I played a decent match and he didn’t play so well. Then, it was like everything flushed out of my system and I got on a roll.”

Pepperdine Coach Allen Fox knew it just a matter of time before Weiss began recording the kind of results that people expected from him. After all, Weiss had an outstanding junior career as he defeated rival Aaron Krickstein 11 of 15 times. And, he played so well as a sophomore in college, Weiss was ranked No. 5 heading into his junior season.

“It was bound to happen eventually,” Fox said. “It was just a question of when. Just as long as he stuck in there.”