March 21, 2008
The No. 19-ranked Texas A&M men?â„¢s tennis team opens its 2008 Big 12 Conference season with a road clash against No. 21 Texas Tech in a match that was moved to Saturday, March 22 at 4 p.m. due to weather concerns. The dual match was originally scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m.
The Aggies (9-5 overall) are coming off a 5-2 win over Louisville on Thursday, while the Red Raiders (15-2) reached the final of the Blue-Gray Tennis Classic in their most recent action.
Texas Tech will be the eighth top 25 team the Aggies have faced this season, with five of those matches occurring away from the Aggies?â„¢ Mitchell Tennis Center. The Aggies are 3-4 against top 25 teams this season, with wins over No. 22 Boise State, No. 12 Duke on the road and No. 20 Wake Forest.
?It?â„¢s going to help us obviously because we?â„¢ve had such a rough non-conference schedule, and played so many good teams,? second-year Aggie head coach Steve Denton said. ?It?â„¢s prepared us for what we?â„¢re going to face in the Big 12. The conference is really strong this year, so we?â„¢re going to have our hands full with every team that we will play. Starting the conference season on the road against Texas Tech will be a big challenge for us.?
The Aggies have two common opponents with Texas Tech ?- TCU and No. 8 Tulsa. The Aggies dropped a 5-2 road decision to Tulsa and beat TCU, 4-3, while Tech fell to TCU, 4-3, in Fort Worth and lost to Tulsa, 4-0, in the Blue-Gray final in Montgomery, Ala.
The last time in Lubbock, the Aggies took a narrow 4-3 victory over the Red Raiders in 2006. Then-freshman Conor Pollock clinched the match for the Aggies with three-set win at No. 3 singles.