The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Presbyterian (NCAA Championships First Round)
No. 10 Men’s Tennis Preview: Presbyterian (NCAA Championships First Round)
05.06.2017 | Men's Tennis
Texas hosts Presbyterian, No. 29 Tulane and No. 49 Washington at Caswell Tennis Center.
WHAT: No. 10 national seed Texas hosts a first- and second-round site of the 2017 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships. The Longhorns will take on Big South Conference champion Presbyterian in the first round (round of 64). No. 29 Tulane will meet No. 49 Washington in the other first-round match. The two first-round winners will go head-to-head in the second round.
WHEN/WHERE
NCAA Championships First Round Matches
Presbyterian (18-10) at No. 10 Texas (19-8)
Friday, May 12 – 1 p.m. CT (pending completion of the previous match)
Caswell Tennis Center
2312 Shoal Creek Blvd.
Austin, Texas 78705
LIVE SCORING
http://sidearmstats.com/texas/mtennis/xlive.htm
No. 49 Washington (12-11) vs. No. 29 Tulane (18-5)
Friday, May 12 – 10 a.m. CT
Caswell Tennis Center
LIVE SCORING
http://sidearmstats.com/texas/mtennis/xlive.htm
NCAA Championships Second Round Match
Saturday, May 13 – 1 p.m. CT
Washington/Tulane winner vs. Presbyterian/Texas winner
LIVE SCORING
http://sidearmstats.com/texas/mtennis/xlive.htm
NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY
The Longhorns earn their 26th consecutive bid to the NCAA Championships and their 35th overall selection since the NCAA bracketed tournament was introduced in 1977. Texas holds a 52-34 record at the NCAA Championships in the current bracketed format.
Texas most recently hosted NCAA first- and second-round matches in 2015 and resumes hosting duties in 2017 after taking to the road a year ago. UT defeated Lamar and host Texas A&M in the first two rounds of the 2016 NCAA Championships in College Station before narrowly falling to Ohio State in the round of 16 at The University of Tulsa.
Texas' top finishes at the NCAA Championships came in 1955 and 2008 as the NCAA runner-up.
ITA RANKINGS (participating schools, May 4)
Singles
18. Constantin Schmitz, Tulane
25. Christian Sigsgaard, Texas
36. Harrison Scott, Texas
55. Yuya Ito, Texas
100. Mitch Stewart, Washington
117. Sebastian Rey, Tulane
Doubles
70. Sebastian Rey/Chi-Shan Jao, Tulane
76. Leonardo Telles/George Goldhoff, Texas
89. Constantin Schmitz/Chi-Shan Jao, Tulane
TEXAS TRIO EARNS NCAA INDIVIDUAL SELECTIONS
The NCAA announced May 3 the invitations of Texas sophomore Harrison Scott and freshmen Christian Sigsgaard and Yuya Ito to compete in the 64-player singles draw later this month at the NCAA Championships. The men's singles tournament runs May 24-29 at the NCAA Championships in Athens, Georgia.
The 45th-ranked Scott earns his first NCAA individual bid after posting a 27-10 overall singles record, including a 17-7 dual-match mark primarily at Nos. 2 and 3 singles. The Canadian has three ITA top-30 wins to his credit, including two in the last three weeks.
Sigsgaard and Ito are the first Texas freshmen to earn NCAA singles bids since 2008, when Ed Corrie and Kellen Damico earned their invitations. The 26th-ranked Sigsgaard brings a 25-15 overall singles record into the NCAA Championships.
UT's newcomer from Denmark reached the semifinals of the ITA All-American Championships and competed in the ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships last fall. Sigsgaard boasts a pair of wins over ITA top-10 opponents and five ITA top-50 victories.
Ito joined Sigsgaard in the main draws of the ITA All-American Championships and the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships last fall. The freshman from Yokohama, Japan, holds a 23-12 overall singles record and an 11-6 mark in dual matches.
The NCAA singles draw will be released later this month.
CENTER COLLECTS 500TH CAREER WIN
Texas' 4-3 win at Oklahoma (March 31) marked the 500th career victory for UT head coach Michael Center. It also marked the Longhorns' first victory over the Sooners in Norman since 2009.
Center boasts a 343-129 (.727) mark in his 16-plus seasons with the Longhorns. He holds a 501-197 (.718) record in his 25-plus seasons as a head coach at Kansas (men and women), TCU and Texas.
Center has taken Texas to the NCAA Championships in each of his 17 seasons on the Forty Acres. He led the Longhorns to the NCAA round of 16 or better in 11 of his 16 previous NCAA Championships appearances, including the last three seasons.
HORNS HOOK NO. 2 OHIO STATE
Texas and Ohio State have engaged in some epic, competitive matches through the years, and their recent contest in Austin was no exception. The Longhorns found themselves trailing 3-0, but Texas went the distance and won third sets in the four remaining matches to stun the second-ranked Buckeyes, 4-3.
Senior George Goldhoff, sophomore Leonardo Telles and freshman Yuya Ito won their third sets to keep the Horns in the match and set the stage for the clincher from sophomore Rodrigo Banzer, who finished off OSU's Kyle Seelig in a third-set tiebreaker, 7-3.
TEXAS TAKES DOWN CALIFORNIA ON BAY AREA ROAD TRIP
Less than a week removed from its match against No. 3 Wake Forest, Texas took on a challenging road swing at No. 41 Stanford and No. 6 California. The Horns suffered a 4-1 defeat at Stanford but scored a big 4-3 win over the Golden Bears in Berkeley. Leonardo Telles rallied from one set down and defeated J.T. Nishimura in three sets to break a 3-3 tie and deliver Texas the victory.
HORNS WINS TWO OF THREE AT NATIONAL INDOORS
Texas put together a productive stint at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships that yielded wins over No. 6 Florida and No. 12 Oklahoma State, and the Horns very nearly upset No. 2 Wake Forest, as well.
Texas opened the National Indoors by taking the doubles point over Florida and garnering singles wins from Harrison Scott, Leonardo Telles and Rodrigo Banzer in a 4-2 win over the seventh-seeded Gators.
The Longhorns fell just two games shy of knocking off No. 2 Wake Forest and advancing to the semifinals, but the Demon Deacons managed to edge the Longhorns, 4-3. Texas trailed 3-0 before picking up singles wins from Yuya Ito, Harrison Scott and Leonardo Telles to even the match at three.
Rodrigo Banzer led Alan Gadjlev 4-3 in the third set before Gadjlev won the three ensuing games to close out the match.
Texas moved on to the consolation round on Sunday (Feb. 19) and took on Big 12 foe Oklahoma State. The Cowboys assumed a 1-0 lead after doubles, but the Longhorns answered with four wins in singles and dealt Oklahoma State a 4-2 defeat.
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. 10 in the ITA singles rankings. It marked Sigsgaard's third win over an ITA top-15 opponent this season.
Sigsgaard boasts an impressive 24-14 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 earned 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 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.
Players Mentioned
