The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
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Purdue
No. 11 Men’s Tennis Preview: Purdue and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
02.09.2017 | Men's Tennis
Longhorns wrap five-match home stand this weekend at Weller Indoor.
WHAT: No. 11 Texas (7-1) completes its five-match home stand this weekend with a day-night doubleheader against Purdue and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
WHEN/WHERE
Purdue at No. 11 Texas
Sunday, Feb. 12 – Noon CT
Edgar O. and Melanie A. Weller Indoor Tennis Center – Austin, Texas
LIVE SCORING: http://www.sidearmstats.com/texas/mten/
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at No. 11 Texas
Sunday, Feb. 12 – 5 p.m. CT
Edgar O. and Melanie A. Weller Indoor Tennis Center – Austin, Texas
LIVE SCORING: http://www.sidearmstats.com/texas/mten/
ITA RANKINGS UPDATE (Feb. 8, Texas players)
Singles
5. Christian Sigsgaard
45. Yuya Ito
58. Harrison Scott
Doubles
27. Ito/Scott
SEVEN STRAIGHT FOR SCOTT
Sophomore Harrison Scott is off to an excellent start through the opening month of dual-match play for the Longhorns. The Canadian has won all seven
of his singles decisions in the Horns' eight dual matches this season.
In fact, Scott hasn't dropped a set since October when he fell to TCU's 55th-ranked Guillermo Nunez at the ITA Texas Regional Championships.
Last weekend, Scott helped Texas to a 4-3 win over Virginia Tech by way of his 6-3, 7-5 win over Mitch Harper at third singles.
TEXAS ADVANCES TO ITA NATIONAL INDOORS
Texas punched its ticket to the ITA National Team Indoor Championships two weeks ago by winning its Austin site of the annual ITA Kick-Off Weekend event.
The Longhorns opened the Kick-Off event with a 4-1 win over Drake before taking on Oregon in the final round with the National Team Indoors berth on the line. The Ducks won the doubles point, but Texas won four of five singles decisions and earned its trip to the National Indoors with a 4-2 win.
The tournament draw will be released next week.
SIGSGAARD NAMED BIG 12 PLAYER OF THE WEEK
The Big 12 Conference announced Jan. 24 the selection of Texas freshman Christian Sigsgaard as the league's Men's Tennis Player of the Week. It marked the first such honor for UT's newcomer from Denmark.
On Jan. 15, Sigsgaard defeated Arkansas' Mike Redlicki, who won the 2016 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in November and is currently ranked No. 6 in the ITA singles rankings.
Sigsgaard, already the nation's fifth-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 20-5 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.
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 gave Texas its highest singles ranking since 2015, when his fellow countryman Soren Hess-Olesen ranked sixth in the final singles rankings.
Freshman Yuya Ito joined his classmate Sigsgaard in the top-40 of the ITA singles rankings at No. 36, and sophomore Harrison Scott came in at No. 47. Ito joined Scott to rank 38th nationally in doubles, while sophomores Rodrigo Banzer and Leonardo Telles held 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
Texas will play at least three matches at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships (Feb. 17-20) at The University of Virginia. The Horns return home on Feb. 24 when they host Wichita State at the Weller Indoor Tennis Center.
