Feb. 3, 2011
HOUSTON, Texas - The 10th-ranked Texas A&M men's tennis team (3-0) will travel to Houston to face the 5th-ranked Texas Longhorns (5-0) in the annual Texas Cup, a non-conference dual match held between the two schools, scheduled for Friday, Feb. 4 at 6 p.m. at The Downtown Club at the Met.
"We are very excited to renew our rivalry with a very talented Texas team," Aggie head coach Steve Denton said. "They got the best of us last year and we are looking forward to playing them in Houston at the Met on Friday. It might be cold outside, but this will be a very hotly contested tennis match indoors. This early season match gives us a very good gauge of where we are and will certainly go a long way in making our team better prepared for the (ITA) National Indoors in Seattle, as well as helping prepare us for conference battles and the NCAA Championships."
The Aggies qualified for the ITA National Team Indoor Championships by defeating Mississippi State, 4-3 from the SEC, and Miami, 7-0 from the ACC, last weekend at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station. This marks the first National Indoor appearance for Texas A&M under the direction of Coach Denton.
The Longhorns also qualified for the National Indoors talented field that includes nine of the Top 10 teams in the country and 14 of the Top 15. The field includes Virginia (1), USC (2), Tennessee (3), Ohio State (4), Texas (5), UCLA (6), Florida (7), Stanford (8), Texas A&M (10), Georgia (11), Kentucky (12), Louisville (13), Duke (14) and Texas Tech (15), as well as host Washington (26). (Rankings were from Jan. 25 poll, new poll will be released later today, Feb. 3).
This marks the fourth straight year for the Texas Cup to be held in Houston. Last year, the Horns edged the Aggies, 4-3, to win the Texas Cup in February. The two squads faced off in a regular-season Big 12 match in Austin with Texas taking a 7-0 decision. The two rivals reached the Big 12 Championship finals, which was played in Austin, and once again a very close match fell the Horns' way, by a 4-3 margin. The last Aggie victory in the series was the 2009 regular season Big 12 match in the Lone Star Showdown, 4-3.
The Aggies and the Horns will face each other at the Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station in both teams final Big 12 regular season match on Apr. 23.
This year's first meeting will highlight some of the very best tennis players in the nation. The Aggies' senior All-Americans Austin Krajicek (Brandon, FL) and Jeff Dadamo (Tampa, FL) are currently the top-ranked doubles tandem in the country. The duo of Alberto Bautista (McAllen, TX) and Colin Hoover (Victoria, TX) are ranked No. 32 and sophomore Niall Angus (London, England) and senior Alexey Grigorov (Moscow, Russia) are ranked No. 49.
The Texas doubles lineup has Ed Corrie and Jean Andersen ranked No. 5 in the land, Ben Chen and Daniel Whitehead are ranked No. 15 and Kellen Damico and David Holiner are ranked No. 25.
In singles rankings, A&M's Krajicek is the highest ranked singles player in this match at No. 23 with Dadamo coming in at No. 54 and Hoover at No. 95.
Texas has Vasko Mladenov at No. 78 and Ben Chen at No. 100. The Texas lineup has some highly touted newcomers as well.
The Aggies will return to the friendly confines of the Mitchell Tennis Center next Sunday, Feb. 13 as the team hosts SMU at 1 p.m. and takes on St. Edward's at 6 p.m.