UNLV Olympic Sports Notebook: Rebels tennis team looks to beat injury bug

Thursday, March 22, 2001 | 9:31 a.m.

On paper, the UNLV men's tennis team's 7-6 record may not seem that impressive.

In fact, it may classify as a minor miracle that the Rebels have a winning record considering their top three players are nursing nagging injuries.

The Rebels' No. 1 singles player Nenad Zivkovic, a senior from Belgrade, Serbia, has been hampered by a rotator cuff injury that forced him to serve underhanded during last weekend's Blue-Gray Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Ala.

Despite resorting to the unorthodox serve, Zivkovic posted a win at the No. 2 spot in singles and helped UNLV win the match by winning his doubles match with partner Gregor Skorin.

"He beat the No. 1 player for Harvard serving underhanded and that was a good win," UNLV head coach Larry Easley said of Zivkovic. "He can't hit an overhead, either, so you wonder how in the world can he win in doubles, but he won the match for us.

"He has been doing pretty well serving underhanded; he has got a pretty good underhanded serve and it's not easy to attack him. If you can't attack him, his strength is his ground strokes anyway."

In addition to Zivkovic's injury, No. 2 singles player Thomas Schneiter has been nursing an ankle injury and No. 3 singles player Danny Erez has a slightly torn muscle in his arm.

"We are a little beat up," Easley said. "We don't have a lot of depth to begin with but we have done pretty well considering how banged up we are."

Easley rested Schneiter and Erez in a loss to Texas Christian on Tuesday and hopes to be back near full strength when the Rebels host New Mexico State on Friday and Tulsa on Sunday at the Fertitta Tennis Complex.

"I'm resting them up so I trust that by this weekend I'll have everybody back and somewhat healthy," Easley said. "We are playing against people (this weekend) that we can beat -- but we can lose to them, too. Those are the matches where I need to try to get everybody back and healthy."

UNLV is 3-3 in the conference and 11-15 overall.

The Rebels improved their overall record to 16-14 by winning two of five games in the Kia Klassic.

Krzyskow will swim in the 50 and 100 free and the 100 butterfly; Livingston will compete in the 100 and 200 fly; Simon will swim in the 200 and 500 free; and Wood will compete in the 50 and 100 free.

Smith jumped 12.13 to capture first in the triple jump and shattered her career best in the long jump, clearing 18-01.75 for her first collegiate victory.

UNLV's Charlotte Covington captured the pole vault title by clearing 3-15.

The Rebels travel to Northern California next weekend for the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto.