UO Career Wins Record In Sight For Laurent At Home Thursday
03/05/19 | Men's Tennis, @GoDucksMoseley
Senior Thomas Laurent, who has developed into one of the top players in the country and a future pro, has a chance to set the UO record for career wins Thursday.
When Justin Herbert throws a touchdown pass in Autzen Stadium, some 50,000 fans are in attendance to cheer him on. Every time Sabrina Ionescu pads her NCAA record for triple-doubles in Matthew Knight Arena, it's celebrated by seven or eight thousand people.
Thousands of fans also pack MKA to cheer on all-America middle blocker Ronika Stone and the UO volleyball team. Last spring, Hayward Field was full as Jessica Hull brought home the NCAA title in the 1,500 meters.
Those student-athletes are among the elite of the elite in the UO athletic department, and they are justly celebrated. This week Oregon fans have two chances to see one of their brethren, a hidden gem whose accomplishments are right up there with Hull and Ionescu and Stone, who usually sees his competitions attended by crowds numbering not in the thousands, but the dozens.
Thomas Laurent came to Eugene in 2016 as an unheralded recruit from Montpellier, France. He was blessed with exceptional athleticism but lacked power, or the desire to improve it in the weight room. UO men's tennis coach Nils Schyllander thought he'd added a nice little player to the roster, one who could occupy the No. 3 singles slot for the next few years.
Laurent will leave Eugene after this spring in the conversation as the program's best player ever. A light switched on during his sophomore year, when Laurent ascended to the No. 1 singles spot for Oregon, and set a program record for one season with 30 wins. By embracing better nutrition habits, and accepting the benefits of weight training, Laurent is now poised to set Oregon's career wins record, his first chance coming Thursday when the Ducks host Middle Tennessee at the UO Student Tennis Center.
Entering this week, Laurent has 93 career wins, tied for the UO career record with his former teammate Jayson Amos (2014-17). Laurent brings an eight-match win streak into Thursday's dual against Middle Tennessee, and is on pace to hit 100 career victories before this season's end, perhaps during Oregon's final home weekend of the regular season, against Cal and Stanford on April 19-20.
In the fall, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rated Laurent as the No. 8 player in the country, and he has remained in the top 10 since. His highest ranking has been No. 3, in early February. To put it in terms most Oregon fans would understand, if he were he a football player, Laurent would be a Heisman Trophy candidate.
"You're watching a guy that, literally, if this was football he'd be one of those guys sitting in the chairs at the end of the season waiting to see who wins," said UO assistant Arron Spencer, a native of Eugene.
Laurent didn't bring that level of expectation to Eugene. He projected as a "middle lineup guy," Spencer said, one who could go into lock-down on the baseline and hit returns all day, waiting for his opponent to miss.
Initially, Laurent showed few signs of developing into anything more than that.
"Freshman year I came in, and I'd never practiced that hard in my life," Laurent said. "I wasn't committing to tennis 100 percent at all."
In particular, Laurent had an aversion to the weight room. Oh, he would step foot inside one. But that was the limit of his participation in workouts.
"I would go to a lift and just watch the other guys do it," he recalled. "Honestly, not even touch a weight."
That was the point in Laurent's development when his decision to uproot from his native France and play collegiately in the United States paid the biggest dividends. Had he stayed home, he immediately would have begun playing professionally. Unprepared mentally for the rigors of that level, and undeveloped physically, the chances of Laurent sticking around in the game would have been slim.
But by enrolling at Oregon, Laurent had the chance to mature, physically and mentally. UO coach Nils Schyllander consistently prodded Laurent to think long-term, beyond the present moment, and work on his game. Eventually, the message stuck.
When he went up against elite players, Laurent saw that his defensive approach wasn't enough. He also saw, in those matches against world-class competition, that his potential was at their level – if only he devoted himself to the game. So he did.
In team meals, Laurent sorted through options with care. In the weight room, he put on some 30 pounds of muscle over the last three years. During road trips, it's not unusual for Schyllander to walk by a hotel gym and see Laurent toiling away, by himself. His commitment has become total.
"He's out there doing something purposeful every day," Spencer said. "He's not waiting to be told what he needs to do."
"When you see a guy start doing sit-ups at changeover during a match," Schyllander added, "that tells you right there."
The added muscle, Laurent said, "changed my entire game. I wasn't able to make winners before that. My entire game was just relying on making the other person miss. It's opened completely new possibilities for me."
Credit his collegiate strength-and-conditioning program with that. Enrolling at a university in the U.S. had already forced Laurent to develop his doubles play, adding a serve-and-volley element to his game. Now he's also strong enough to complement his athletic defensive play with powerful forehand winners. And he's changed his mentality to take advantage of that newly tapped ability.
"Every year, I took one more step," Laurent said. "This year, the extra step was to be more aggressive."
That aggressiveness makes Laurent's game perhaps the most fan-friendly on the UO roster, something Oregon fans can experience in person Thursday when the Ducks host Middle Tennessee at 6 p.m., or in the Pac-12 opener against Washington on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Thursday's match is the first chance for Laurent, one of the elite players in the country, to play for the UO career wins record. Because of his newly aggressive style, he's usually done with his singles match within about 90 minutes – and that includes a set of doubles, on one of the three UO tandems playing for the team point at stake prior to the six singles matches.
College tennis employs "no-ad" scoring, meaning that if a game is tied 40-40, the next point wins, eliminating the drawn-out, win-by-two format of the pro tour. And rather than the crisp, quiet atmosphere of Wimbledon, the UO Student Tennis center can be a raucous environment, with players cheering themselves and their teammates on.
"When I've invited people, every time they're like, 'that's pretty cool,'" Laurent said.
"Maybe they were lying to me," he added with a laugh. "But they always say they have a lot of fun."
If nothing else, Laurent's remaining matches are a chance to say you saw him when, before he became a known commodity on tour.
"He's one of the top athletes in the nation," Schyllander said. "Tennis is one of the biggest sports in the world – and he's ready for the pro tour. He's counting down the hours."
Laurent has indoctrinated himself into the world of U.S. college sports. He has attended games in Autzen Stadium and Matthew Knight Arena. He's marveled at the crowds, and wondered what it would be like to play for that many fans.
"It's crazy," he said. "In France, even in soccer, if you have a high school or college team, if you can bring out 50 people it's huge. Then you show up here and have huge facilities. So it's crazy."
The UO Student Tennis Center isn't equipped to handle a crowd of more than a couple hundred. But whenever Laurent takes the court, the facility is bursting at the seams with talent, oozing future potential, overflowing with a commitment to the game that has made Laurent one of the very elite players in the NCAA, and in Oregon men's tennis history.
When he's done with this season, Laurent's name will fill the UO record book. On Thursday, he has the chance to add it atop the career wins list for the Ducks. For an Oregon fan looking to cheer on one of the athletic department's truly elite competitors, it's an event to be celebrated. First serve is at 6 p.m.
Players Mentioned
