College Station, TX - Coming off back-to-back Top 10-ranked seasons, the Texas A&M men's tennis team will once again embark on a challenging slate of matches throughout the year.
"Coach (Bob) McKinley does an amazing job every year in making sure we play one of the toughest schedules in the country," Aggie head tennis coach Steve Denton said. "This year we are scheduled to play 11 of the Top 20 teams in the country. This is important in helping the development of our players and to make sure the 12th Man is able to see some of the best college tennis in the country. Last year, we brought in two Top 10 programs in Ohio State and Illinois and the crowd for the Ohio State match set a record." (1,093 vs. Ohio State best regular season attendance mark.)
The Aggies will return the visit by facing those two ranked foes on the road and another stiff road test will be at Charlottesville, Virginia, to face the Virginia Cavaliers who were ranked No. 1 for the majority of the 2011 season.
The three-time defending national champion USC Trojans will return to the place where the current streak of national titles began at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station in 2009. USC will face the Aggies on Mar. 15, 2012.
Non-conference ranked foes such as LSU, Tulsa, SMU and Rice are on the schedule as well as the always tough Big 12 Conference competitors.
The Aggies finished the 2010-11 season with a school-record 29-6 dual match record and reached the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Championships. The A&M dynamic duo of Jeff Dadamo and Austin Krajicek won the NCAA Doubles Championship and earned a spot in the upcoming U.S. Open in New York. Another Aggie tennis player has also earned a spot at the prestigious national championships as freshman Jackson Withrow teamed with Jack Sock to win the USTA junior national championships earlier this summer in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The U.S. Open draw is scheduled for Monday.