Men's Tennis Hosts Back-To-Back Top 10 Teams In Ohio State and Illinois
Mar 12, 2009 | Men's Tennis
March 12, 2009
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Back-to-back top 10 opponents are up next for the No. 18-ranked Texas A&M men's tennis team who returns home for competition after nearly two months of play on the road.
The Aggies (5-4) will have their hands full with No. 5 Ohio State on Friday, March 13 and No. 7 Illinois on Sunday, March 15. First serve against the Buckeyes (14-1) is set for 4:30 p.m. (CT) on Friday at the City of Bryan Indoor Tennis Center and the Fighting Illini (13-3) at noon (CT) on Sunday at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
A&M first and only home match of the season was a 5-2 victory over Radford on Jan. 25. Ohio State begins a four-match homestand for the Aggies against the nation's top teams. They will face USC and LSU the following week during the spring break holiday.
"We've been away from home since January 25, so it feels good to be back here to play," Texas A&M head coach Steve Denton said. "We've been back home to train during that time, but to play in front of the 12th Man will be a bonus for us and our players are really looking forward to it."
A&M is fresh off a 2-0 weekend in the Pacific Northwest with a pair of wins at Boise State (6-1) and Washington (4-3) which catapulted the Aggies to their current top 25 team ranking. Both Big Ten Conference powers boast five nationally-ranked singles players in their lineup, while A&M is paced by No. 24-ranked Conor Pollock (San Antonio, Texas), No. 22-ranked Wil Spencer (Ponce de Leon, Fla.) and No. 107-ranked Austin Krajicek (Brandon, Fla.). Krajicek and Pollock are ranked a season-best No. 6 national ranking in doubles and have put together a 16-5 overall record and 8-1 at the No. 1 line in dual matches.
"Ohio State is a very talented team," Denton said. "They are one of five or six teams that will be a favorite to win the NCAA Championship this season. This may be (head coach) Ty Tucker's best team that he's had. I don't think they've played a lot of outdoor tennis so hopefully, we may catch them as long as weather isn't an issue, which it might be on Friday. We may have to play indoors, which wouldn't be as big of an advantage for us. We have some momentum, good players and we match up well against them. Everyone is going to have to play well and everything is going to have to line up just right for us to beat a quality team like that."
Prior to the OSU match, Texas A&M will honor Krajicek and Pollock for their All-America season in 2008. The Aggies' top doubles tandem advanced further than any other pair in school history when they reached the semifinals of the 2008 NCAA Doubles Championship. They knocked off Omar Altmann and Andre Begemann of Pepperdine (6-4, 3-6, 6-3), top-seeded and top-ranked Somdev Devvarman and Treat Huey of Virginia (6-3, 6-4) and Drew Eberly and Justin Kronauge of Ohio State before falling to the Mississippi duo of Jonas Berg and Erling Tveit (6-4, 6-4) in the semis. The historic run by the first-year doubles team earned them their first career All-America honors as they closed out the season ranked No. 9 in the final ITA doubles rankings.
A&M will have a quick two-day turnaround prior to meeting Illinois on Sunday. The Aggies are 2-0 against the Buckeyes in the all-time series having last met in 1999 and 4-7 against the Fighting Illini.
"Illinois is another top 10 team and a quality Big Ten opponent that has a lot of balance," Denton said. "Their No. 1 player and their No. 6 are playing nearly at the same level. That's what makes their team so good. They will be a real challenge for us, especially a day after we have a war against Ohio State. Our players need these kind of matches to get better. We are looking forward to playing them. The last time we played Illinois, in my first year at A&M, they embarrassed us (in Urbana-Champaign). We just weren't ready to play against that quality of an indoor opponent and hopefully, we'll fair better this time around. These are the caliber teams that we need to play, if we're going to end up being an elite team this year."
Complete results and live statistics will be available for both matches at: www.AggieAthletics.com.
Ohio State Match Promotions...The first 150 A&M students who attend the Ohio State match will receive a free pair of Crocs and price of admission will be $1. Between the doubles and singles matches, there will be a Battle of the Clubs. Each Bryan-College Station area athletic club will have a mixed doubles team who will play a 10-point tiebreaker. The winning team will receive a gift certificate to Christopher's World Grille. Julie Rich and Bert Hart will compete for the Miramont Country Club, Janice Ashley and Ali Habib for the Pebble Creek Country Club, Shelly Walker and Randy Carvajal for Aerofit and Barbara Armon and Jason Schickedanz for the Briarcrest Country Club.
City of Bryan Indoor Tennis Center Directions...Should this weekend's matches move indoors due to inclement weather, A&M will play indoors at the City of Bryan Tennis Center located directly behind Mitchell Elementary School at 2500 Austin's Colony Pkwy, Bryan, TX 77808.
