The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Rice
No. 10 Men’s Tennis Preview: Rice
03.08.2018 | Men's Tennis
Longhorns head to the Bayou City to kick off two-match road swing.
No. 10 Texas (10-2) at Rice (5-8)
Saturday, March 10 – 1 p.m. CT
George R. Brown Tennis Center – Houston, Texas
Live Video/Scoring: http://www.riceowls.com/facilities/tennis-livestats.html
ITA RANKINGS
Doubles
3. Rodrigo Banzer/Leonardo Telles
42. Yuya Ito/Harrison Scott
Singles
46. Yuya Ito
60. Harrison Scott
70. Leonardo Telles
95. John Mee
SCOTT EARNS BIG 12 HONOR
The Big 12 Conference announced Tuesday the selection of Texas junior Harrison Scott as the league's Men's Tennis Player of the Week.
Scott clinched both of Texas' big road wins last weekend at No. 16 North Carolina State and No. 6 North Carolina. Scott snapped North Carolina's 29-match home winning streak that spanned nearly two full seasons with his thrilling 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-3 win over the Heels' 105th-ranked Robert Kelly at third singles.
Two days earlier, the junior from Calgary, Alberta nailed down UT's 4-1 win over the 16th-ranked Wolfpack in Raleigh with his 7-6 (5), 2-6, 7-5 victory over Igor Saveljic at third singles.
Scott now holds three wins over ranked opponents this season, and he has won six straight singles matches.
TEXAS TWO-STEPS THROUGH THE TAR HEEL STATE
The Longhorns headed to North Carolina last weekend to take on stiff competition in the form of No. 16 North Carolina State and No. 6 North Carolina. Texas came home with a pair of momentous victories over the Wolfpack and Tar Heels on their respective home courts.
UT dropped the doubles point for only the third time this season against N.C. State, but the Longhorns ran off four consecutive wins on the Wolfpack's indoor courts to close out a 4-1 win.
Texas took a different path to victory in Sunday's match at North Carolina. Headlined by a win from Leonardo Telles and Rodrigo Banzer over UNC's sixth-ranked tandem of William Blumberg and Robert Kelly, UT took the doubles point from the Tar Heels.
The two sides went back and forth in singles until the match knotted at three. Just as he did at N.C. State, Texas junior Harrison Scott provided the match clincher once more at UNC. The Canadian finished off the 105th-ranked Kelly to seal the Longhorns' 4-3 win. It marked Texas' first victory over a top-10 team since the Horns knocked off seventh-seeded Baylor in the third round of the 2017 NCAA Championships.
The victories placed back in the top-10 of the ITA team poll for the first time since Jan. 24.
ITO EARNS SECOND BIG 12 WEEKLY HONOR
The Big 12 Conference announced Feb. 27 the selection of Texas All-America sophomore Yuya Ito as the league's Men's Tennis Player of the Week. Ito earned his second selection of the season after receiving the honor on Feb. 13.
The 118th-ranked Ito registered his second win of the season over a ranked opponent in UT's win over Georgia Tech. He made short work of Georgia Tech's 41st-ranked Carlos Divar and prevailed 6-1, 6-2 as the Longhorns knocked off the Yellow Jackets, 5-2.
LONGHORNS POST FIRST WIN AT TEXAS TENNIS CENTER
Texas notched its first team victory at its new Texas Tennis Center on Jan. 28 when it knocked off Tennessee in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend event. The Longhorns won the doubles point and added singles wins from Rodrigo Banzer, Yuya Ito and the clincher from Adrian Ortiz, as Texas dealt the visiting Volunteers a 4-1 defeat.
BANZER SELECTED AS BIG 12 PLAYER OF THE WEEK
The Big 12 Conference announced the selection of Texas junior Rodrigo Banzer as the league's first Men's Tennis Player of the Week for the 2018 season (Jan. 16).
The 98th-ranked Banzer went 6-0 in singles and doubles and won the individual championship over the weekend at the Longhorn Invitational. Points were awarded for each singles and doubles win depending on their opponent's position in their lineup, and Banzer won the individual championship with room to spare.
Banzer, a native of La Paz, Bolivia, did not yield a set while winning his three singles matches. He improved to an impressive 15-3 at the time in doubles alongside Leonardo Telles with three more doubles wins, which included a top-40 victory over Vanderbilt's 36th-ranked tandem of Lachlan McPhee and Billy Rowe.
Players Mentioned
