USTA: THACHER LEADS SOCAL.

Byline: ERIK BOAL Special to the Daily News

The competition no longer includes Davis Cup in the title, but Ryan Thacher is well aware of the history associated with the USTA 18-under Boys' National Team Championships.

``It's renowned,'' the Harvard-Westlake of Studio City junior said. ``People hear about this and they know what it's all about.''

Although he's only 16, Thacher will be making his debut for Southern California when the 17-team tournament -- formerly known as the Junior Davis Cup -- begins today at University of Illinois in Urbana.

In doing so, he'll be following recent area standouts Sam Querrey (Thousand Oaks), Gary Sacks (Calabasas) and Nima Roshan (Granada Hills), who have led Southern California to three consecutive finals and back-to- back championships.

Southern California, which is expected to be seeded first or second in the four-day event, recorded 6-1 victories over Texas to capture titles the past two years. Those performances helped ease the pain of a 5-2 loss to the Southern representative in the 2003 final.

Thacher, who helped Southern California's 16-under team win the Intersectional Team Championships on July 13 in Shreveport, La., is seeking a similar result in the more prestigious 18-under event.

``Because it's the 18s, it makes it a little more special,'' said Thacher, who, along with Orange High's Steve Johnson, are the only Southern California athletes to compete in both tournaments.

``Hopefully we can match the performance of the 16s.''

Johnson and Torrey Pines of San Diego's Steven Forman are the veterans from last year's championship team, which shut out its first three opponents before surrendering the one point to Texas in the final.

Ojai's Bozhidar Katsarov, West Torrance's Jason Jung, Country Day of La Jolla's Greg Hirshman, Tesoro of Las Flores' Nicolas Meister and Thacher were selected to fill the five remaining spots on the roster, giving Southern California a strong chance to three-peat.

``We have an extremely deep team,'' said Thacher, who will be relied on to compete in singles and doubles in the college-style format, which features six singles matches and three doubles pro-sets.

``We've all played each other recently and anyone can beat anyone. Whenever you have that kind of depth one through seven, you have an opportunity to be successful. Even at the top, I think we can do well. Our depth just adds security.''

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Ryan Thacher will play for SoCal in the USTA 18-under Boys' National Team Championships.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer