Jan. 3, 2003

Wake Forest men's tennis player David Loewenthal won the singles draw and was a doubles finalist at the 2002 USTA National Open at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow, N.Y., Dec. 26-30. The junior from Franklin Lakes, N.J., won five straight singles matches to capture the crown and teamed up with Princeton's Kyle Kliegerman to win four straight doubles matches before falling in the finals.

Loewenthal was ranked 28th in singles and 50th in doubles in the preseason and went 14-6 in singles play and 7-5 in doubles this fall. Automatically qualifying for the NCAA Singles Championship last spring, Loewenthal advanced to the second round, where he took top-ranked and number one-seeded, Matias Boeker from Georgia, three sets (the only opponent in the NCAA Championships to do so) before falling to the eventual national champion. Ranked as high as 24th in singles and 27th in doubles, Loewenthal earned first-team All-ACC honors in 2002. Unranked in the fall of 2001, Loewenthal was a finalist at the Regional Championships, which earned him a spot at the National Intercollegiate Indoor championships, where he advanced to the quarterfinals - upsetting four ranked players along the way. He led the team in singles wins as a freshman and now as a junior, Loewenthal is only 15 wins away from the school record for career victories.

Four Demon Deacons appear in the Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Men's Fall Regional Rankings, released earlier in December. Loewenthal is ranked fourth in the Mideast Region, sophomore Derrick Spice is 13th, senior Mike Murray is 15th, senior David Bere is 23rd and the doubles tandem of Loewenthal and Bere are ranked 15th in the region. The ITA divides the nation into eight regions.

Complete results from the USTA National Open are available at http://topspin.tennisinformation.com/tourny/4/5/3/7/4/9/draws.asp and complete fall regional rankings are available at http://www.itatennis.com/ (click on rankings). Five of six starters return from last year's team, including all four of Wake Forest's league-leading four All-ACC selections. The Demon Deacons kick off their spring season with the Hilton Waikaloa Kona Invitational Jan. 11-13 in Kona, Hawaii. Wake Forest will play individual matches against players from Texas A&M, Illinois and Oregon.