May 24, 2011
STANFORD, CA - The dynamic duo of Texas A&M senior tennis All-Americans Austin Krajicek and Jeff Dadamo are poised and ready to compete in the 2011 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Singles and Doubles Championships this week at the Taube Tennis Center on the campus of Stanford.
Krajicek (pronounced CRY-check) and Dadamo (pronounced duh-DOM-oh) are seeded third in doubles, earning All-America honors, and the tandem was named the automatic qualifier from the Big 12 Conference. They will begin doubles play on Thursday no earlier than 4 p.m. CENTRAL against Virginia's Alex Domijan and Jarmere Jenkins. The Virginia duo is part of the nation's top-ranked team, the Virginia Cavaliers, which competed in the team championship on Tuesday. Krajicek and Dadamo are ranked No. 4 in the current ITA rankings in doubles while Domijan and Jenkins are ranked #27.
Krajicek and Dadamo earned All-America honors as a doubles team in 2010 as well. This year they finished 27-3 in dual match play, establishing a new Texas A&M record. In their most recent match, the Aggie duo defeated Stanford's top doubles tandem, ranked No. 3 nationally, of Bradley Klahn and Ryan Thacher, 9-8.
Last fall, Krajicek and Dadamo won the USTA/ITA National Indoor Doubles Championship which was held in Flushing, New York and the duo has won seven straight matches entering NCAA Championship play.
Dadamo, from Tampa, Florida, drew the top-seeded Steve Johnson from the national champion USC team in his opening round match scheduled for 3 p.m. (Central) on Wednesday. Johnson has been ranked No. 1 in the country since Mar. 1, 2011 and was named the Most Outstanding Player in the 2011 NCAA Team Championships. Dadamo, ranked No. 31 in the latest rankings, was a unanimous selection as All-Big 12 in singles and won the Most Outstanding Player honors in the 2011 Big 12 Championships helping A&M win the title. His dual record this spring of 22-4 was the most wins on the Aggie squad and he became the 31stAggie to hit the 20-victory plateau in dual competition. Dadamo has beaten No. 17-ranked Sebastian Fanselow of Pepperdine during the spring.
Dadamo played his first two years at the University of Florida before transferring to Texas A&M and promptly won Big 12 Newcomer of the Year honors and All-Big 12 accolades in 2010. In February of 2010, Dadamo defeated the country's No. 9 player at the time, Ed Corrie from Texas. Dadamo reached the round of 32 at the 2010 NCAA Singles Championships.
Krajicek, from Brandon, Florida, is currently ranked No. 17 in singles and he is matched against Wisconsin's Marek Michalicka, ranked No. 57. In the dual match earlier this year in Madison, Wisconsin, Michalicka defeated Krajicek, 6-3, 6-3, while A&M won the overall match, 5-2. The rematch is set for 2 p.m. central on Wednesday.
Krajicek, who has earned All-America honors all four years at Texas A&M, was recently named the Big 12 Player of the Year and holds the Texas A&M doubles record with 107 victories. The lefthander was named the Co-Player of the Year in the Big 12 in 2010. As a freshman in 2008, he was named the Big 12 Freshman and Newcomer of the Year along with Texas' Ed Corrie. Krajicek became the only Big 12 player to ever win Big 12 Player of the Week honors three times in a row, and he won the honor six times in his career--once as a sophomore, twice as a junior and three times as a senior. The two-time captain, Krajicek has been named All-Big 12 every season in singles and doubles. He has reached as high as No. 6 in singles ITA rankings and has 71 career dual singles victories to rank No. 6 on the Aggie all-time list. When Krajicek and Dadamo brought home the national championship in the fall of 2010 winning the prestigious USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships in Flushing, New York, Krajicek was awarded the ITA Sportsmanship Award. In 2008, along with being named the Co-Freshman of the Year in the Big 12, Krajicek teamed with Conor Pollock to reach the semifinals in the NCAA Doubles Championships. Recently Krajicek was named the 2011 Texas A&M Male Distinguished Letterman of the Year for his work on and off of the tennis courts.
Checkhttp://www.streamingtennis.com/Cardinal/livescoreboard1.htmlfor free live video and scoring of the matches.