The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Lamar
No. 18 Men’s Tennis Preview: Lamar (NCAA Championships)
05.11.2016 | Men's Tennis
Longhorns make their 25th consecutive NCAA Championships appearance this week.
WHAT: No. 18 Texas (17-11) heads to Texas A&M for the first and second rounds of the NCAA Championships.
The Longhorns will meet Lamar (17-5) in the tournament's opening round. Texas and Lamar met earlier this season in Austin (Jan. 12). The Horns knocked off the Cardinals by a 6-1 count.
NCAA Championships First Round (Round of 64)
No. 18 Texas vs. No. 56 Lamar
Friday, May 13 – 10 a.m. CT
Mitchell Tennis Center – College Station, Texas
LIVE SCORING: www.sidearmstats.com/tamu/mten
LIVE VIDEO: www.12thMan.com/showcase
NCAA Championships Second Round (Round of 32)
Texas-Lamar winner vs. No. 12 Texas A&M/George Washington winner
Saturday, May 14 – 1 p.m. CT
NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY
Texas has earned its 34th selection to the NCAA Championships since the bracketed team tournament was introduced in 1977. Texas has qualified for the NCAA Championships for a 25th straight year.
UT holds a 50-33 record at the NCAA Championships. Texas posted its best NCAA Championships team finish in 2008 when it finished as the national runner-up.
Texas defeated Navy (4-0) and California (4-1) in the opening rounds of the 2015 NCAA Championships in Austin. Georgia eliminated UT from the 2015 NCAA Championships in the round of 16.
LAST MEETINGS vs. LAMAR, GEORGE WASHINGTON AND TEXAS A&M
As noted above, Texas defeated Lamar by a 6-1 count earlier this season in Austin. UT holds a 5-0 all-time advantage over Lamar.
UT most recently met Texas A&M in the second round of the 2013 NCAA Championships in College Station, where the Aggies won 4-3. Texas leads A&M 92-18-2 in the all-time series.
Texas and George Washington have not met in men's tennis.
ITA RANKINGS UPDATE
May 5
Singles
18. Arthur Rinderknech, Texas A&M
52. Shane Vinsant, Texas A&M
68. George Goldhoff, Texas
Doubles
8. Arthur Rinderknech/Jackson Withrow, Texas A&M
55. Arthur Rinderknech/Shane Vinsant, Texas A&M
56. Michael Riechmann/Adrian Ortiz, Texas
70. Jordi Arconada/Max Lunkin, Texas A&M
74. Michael Feucht/Benny Schweizer, Lamar
75. Shane Vinsant/A.J. Catanzariti, Texas A&M
89. Aleksandre Bakshi/Jackson Withrow, Texas A&M
CENTER NAMED ITA TEXAS REGION COACH OF THE YEAR
The ITA (Intercollegiate Tennis Association) selected Texas head men's tennis coach Michael Center as the ITA Texas Region Men's Tennis Coach of the Year, the governing body announced Monday (May 9).
Center, now in his 16th season at the helm of the Texas men's tennis program, earned his third such regional honor at Texas, his first since 2010 and the sixth in his 25 years as a college head coach. In 2016, Center has led the Longhorns to a 17-11 overall record and a No. 18 ITA national team ranking heading into this week's NCAA Championships.
UT boasts top-25 wins over No. 6 Wake Forest, No. 16 Oklahoma State and No. 23 Tulsa in addition to victories over No. 26 Rice, No. 28 San Diego, No. 29 Stanford and No. 30 SMU.
With only one senior and one junior in the regular singles and doubles lineups, Center's Longhorns have remained in the ITA top-25 for most of the 2016 dual-match season.
TEXAS TACKLES TOUGH SCHEDULE, ENTERS TOP-20
As is the norm, Center assembled a challenging schedule that gave the Longhorns chances to prepare for the NCAA Championships and accumulate a high national ranking. In fact, 19 of the Longhorns' 28 matches were played against NCAA Championships qualifiers.
Texas totaled a 9-10 record against NCAA tournament teams. UT has taken on six of the nation's top-10 teams (No. 4 TCU, No. 5 Ohio State, No. 6 Wake Forest, No. 8 Texas Tech, No. 9 Florida and No. 10 Oklahoma) and eight of the 16 teams who are hosting NCAA Championships first- and second-round matches this weekend.
Texas went 4-5 in the early going but closed the season by winning 13 of its last 19 matches, including two against top-16 foes.
Back on Feb. 7, the Horns wiped out a 3-1 deficit against Stanford and put away a 4-3 win over the Cardinal. Texas sophomore Adrian Ortiz saved a match point against him and won a tiebreaker against the Cardinal's Nolan Paige to cap the Texas rally.
Two weeks later, Texas made short work of eventual Conference USA champion Rice and shut out the Owls by a 4-0 count in Houston. The following weekend, Texas rallied from a 3-1 deficit to post a thrilling 4-3 win at No. 5 Wake Forest behind three third-set tiebreak wins.
Texas stretched its winning streak to six matches with its victories over UTSA, Louisiana and Southern Mississippi at the H-E-B Tournament of Champions in Corpus Christi. The Horns notched another key road win on March 13 with the victory at eventual NCAA qualifier San Diego, which ended the Toreros' 23-match home winning streak.
Texas swept a doubleheader against No. 24 Tulsa and Incarnate Word on March 26 before adding another doubleheader sweep on Saturday (April 2) against UTSA. The Longhorns posted their second victory over a top-16 opponent when it knocked off No. 16 Oklahoma State, 4-0.
MORE ON THE LONGHORNS
Texas returned five veterans from the 2015 squad that posted a 21-7 record and finished the season ranked ninth nationally.
George Goldhoff posted a 17-10 singles mark, including an 8-6 record in dual matches last season as a sophomore, and he scored his first ranked win of the season in late February at Wake Forest.
He added his second top-40 win in a month-long span when he knocked off Arkansas' 32nd-ranked Mike Redlicki. Goldhoff knocked off Oklahoma State's 59th-ranked Julian Cash in straight sets and vaulted 31 spots to No. 56 in the following week's ITA singles rankings. He now ranks 68th nationally.
Sophomore Adrian Ortiz went 3-2 in dual-match play last season, and redshirt sophomore William Jou added three singles wins as a freshman. Ortiz takes a 12-6 dual-match record to the NCAA Championships.
Senior Michael Riechmann is poised to finish his Texas career with a flourish. The Houston native holds a 26-10 overall singles record, a 15-7 mark in dual matches and a 3-1 record in league play.
Sophomore John Mee notched a 16-8 overall singles record last season as a freshman and holds a 5-3 mark in dual matches this season.
UT also welcomes redshirt freshman Julian Zlobinsky and freshmen Rodrigo Banzer, Johnny Goodwin, Colin Markes, the aforementioned Harrison Scott and Leonardo Telles.
Banzer made his collegiate debut during the ITA Kick-Off Weekend event against Florida and clinched the win at No. 5 Wake Forest. Zlobinsky put together an impressive 13-5 mark in dual matches, including a 2-0 record in league matches. Scott boasts 12 dual-match wins at Nos. 1 and 2 singles.
Center led the Longhorns to their second-straight top-10 final ranking last season as Texas reached the round of 16 at the 2015 NCAA Championships.
A pair of Center's pupils reached the pinnacle of their sport last May when Soren Hess-Olesen and Lloyd Glasspool won the first NCAA doubles title for Texas since 1944.
Center turned to a pair of familiar faces to fill the vacancies on his coaching staff. Bruce Berque, who served as a volunteer coach at Texas last season, is in his first season as an associate head coach under Center.
Berque filled the position previously held by longtime associate head coach Ricardo Rubio, who accepted his first head coaching position last summer with The University of Denver men's tennis program.
Berque served 10 seasons (2004-14) as the head men's tennis coach at Michigan and led the Wolverines to the NCAA Championships in his final nine seasons in Ann Arbor. He helped the Illinois men to the 2003 NCAA title during his six-season stint (1999-2004) as an associate head coach for the Fighting Illini.
Chris Camillone, a former ITA doubles All-American at Texas, is in his first season with the Longhorns as a volunteer assistant coach.
Players Mentioned
