The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Men's Tennis ranks No. 8 in ITA preseason poll
01.06.2010 | Men's Tennis
Jan. 6, 2010
AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas ranks No. 8 in the preseason college tennis team rankings released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), and the Longhorns hold six additional slots in the preseason singles and doubles rankings.
Under 10th-year head coach Michael Center, the Longhorns return four of six singles starters from the 2009 squad that reached the NCAA semifinals, where UT fell to eventual NCAA champion USC, who tops the preseason team rankings while picking up 46 of 53 first-place votes.
Virginia ranks No. 2 after collecting five first-place votes, while Ohio State comes in at No. 3. UCLA ranks fourth, while Tennessee and Baylor follow in fifth and sixth. Georgia ranks seventh, and Texas, with one first-place vote, comes in at No. 8. Stanford and Mississippi round out the top-10.
Senior All-American Dimitar Kutrovsky ranks a career-best No. 5 in the ITA singles rankings and is joined in the top-10 by junior Ed Corrie, who boasts a career-high No. 9 singles ranking after qualifying for the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships last fall. Texas is the only school with two players in the top-10 of the singles rankings.
Senior Josh Zavala makes his first career appearance in the ITA singles rankings at No. 38. Freshman Daniel Whitehead appears in the ITA singles rankings at No. 85, and freshman Vasko Mladenov ranks 104th. Kutrovsky and Zavala are featured at No. 22 in the ITA doubles rankings.
Horns open spring season in south Florida
Fresh off of its holiday break, Texas resumes competition this Friday at the Key Biscayne Quad in Key Biscayne, Fla. The Horns will be competing in the three-day individual tournament alongside Denver, LSU and Michigan.
The Longhorns begin their dual-match season on Jan. 22 at Arkansas.
