The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Drake (ITA Kick-Off Weekend)
01.25.2017 | Men's Tennis
Longhorns play for a berth in next month’s ITA National Team Indoor Championships.
WHAT: No. 9 Texas (4-1) returns home after a three-match road swing and plays host to one of 15 ITA Kick-Off Weekend sites around the country this week.
Rice meets Oregon in the first match on Saturday while Texas takes on Drake in the second match. The first round winners meet Sunday at 1 p.m. with a berth in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships at stake. The first round losing teams play Sunday morning in a consolation match.
WHEN/WHERE
Rice vs. Oregon
Saturday, Jan. 28 – 10 a.m. CT
Edgar O. and Melanie A. Weller Indoor Tennis Center – Austin, Texas
LIVE SCORING: http://www.sidearmstats.com/texas/mten/
Drake at No. 4 Texas (4-1
Saturday, Jan. 28 – 1 p.m. CT
Edgar O. and Melanie A. Weller Indoor Tennis Center – Austin, Texas
LIVE SCORING: http://www.sidearmstats.com/texas/mten/
Sunday, Jan. 29
10 a.m. – First round losing teams
1 p.m. – First round winning teams
LIVE SCORING (both matches): http://www.sidearmstats.com/texas/mten/
LAST TIME OUT
Texas defeated No. 19 Arkansas by a 5-2 count on Sunday (Jan. 22) in Fayetteville.
SIGSGAARD NAMED BIG 12 PLAYER OF THE WEEK
The Big 12 Conference announced Tuesday (Jan. 24) the selection of Texas freshman Christian Sigsgaard as the league's Men's Tennis Player of the Week. It marks the first such honor for UT's newcomer from Denmark.
On Sunday, Sigsgaard defeated Arkansas' Mike Redlicki, who won the 2016 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in November and is currently ranked No. 3 in the ITA singles rankings.
Sigsgaard, already the nation's sixth-ranked player after only a semester-plus of collegiate tennis, collected his third win over an ITA top-15 opponent this season. He added a doubles win alongside Harrison Scott in UT's 5-2 win at No. 19 Arkansas.
Sigsgaard boasts an impressive 20-4 overall singles record after competing in the first two national championship events of the season – the ITA All-American Championships and the ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships.
PRE-SEASON NOTES
LONGHORNS FEATURED PROMINENTLY IN I.T.A. PRESEASON RANKINGS
Texas boasts a top-five team ranking, three top-50 singles placings and two top-50 doubles ranks in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) preseason men's tennis rankings.
The Longhorns came in at No. 4 in the preseason national team poll, which marked the highest preseason ranking for Texas since 2009, when UT ranked second. UT remained at No. 4 in the ITA team poll released last Wednesday and dropped to No. 9 this week.
Texas returns all but one letterwinner from the 2016 squad that reached the NCAA Championships' round of 16 and came within a third-set tiebreaker from advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals.
At No. 6 nationally in singles, Danish freshman Christian Sigsgaard gives Texas its highest singles ranking since 2015, when his fellow countryman Soren Hess-Olesen ranked sixth in the final singles rankings.
Freshman Yuya Ito joins his classmate Sigsgaard in the top-40 of the ITA singles rankings at No. 36, and sophomore Harrison Scott comes in at No. 47. Ito joins Scott to rank 38th nationally in doubles, while sophomores Rodrigo Banzer and Leo Telles hold the No. 44 slot.
Sigsgaard posted an impressive 16-3 fall singles record and played in both fall national championship events – the ITA All-American Championships and the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships.
Sigsgaard won his first 14 matches, including 11 singles contests at the All-American, where he advanced all the way from the pre-qualifying and qualifying draws to the semifinals of the main draw. Sigsgaard won both of his matches two weeks ago against UTSA and Abilene Christian before adding another win on Jan. 15 against SMU's Ronald Slobodchikiv.
Ito notched a 12-6 singles record and joined Sigsgaard in the main draws of the All-American and the National Indoors.
Scott closed the fall with a 10-3 singles mark and won the main singles draw at the Cajun Tennis Classic. He teamed with Ito to register a 5-2 fall record in doubles. Banzer and Telles added a 3-1 doubles mark in fall tournament play.
MORE ON THE LONGHORNS
UT returns senior George Goldhoff, who ended his junior year with a No. 40 national ranking after defeating Texas A&M's Arthur Rinderknech and Ohio State's then-No. 1 Mikael Torpegaard in the Longhorns' final two matches of the season.
Sophomore Rodrigo Banzer won seven dual-matches last season in his first semester of collegiate tennis while junior Adrian Ortiz posted a 14-7 mark in dual matches. Sophomore Julian Zlobinsky notched 13 dual-match wins last season as a redshirt freshman.
UT also saw dual-match contributions last season from sophomores Johnny Goodwin and Colin Markes and juniors William Jou and John Mee.
A LOOK AHEAD
The Longhorns remain home for their next three matches following the ITA Kick-Off Weekend event. UT welcomes Virginia Tech on Feb. 4 and hosts Purdue and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for a doubleheader on Feb. 12. All three of those matches will be played at the Weller Indoor Tennis Center.
