University of Minnesota Athletics
Men's Tennis Heads Off to NCAA Tournament
5/11/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
The NCAA men's tennis tournament opens on Friday as Minnesota meets Arizona in a first-round match in Austin, Texas at 10 a.m.
The Gophers and Wildcats own identical 13-10 overall records and square off in an opening round contest in the 64-team bracket. Texas, the No. 3 overall seed in the tournament, faces Texas-San Antonio at 1 p.m. Friday with the winners to meet at 1 p.m. Saturday for one of 16 berths in the NCAA Finals in Athens, Ga. May 21-25.
Minnesota is making its 15th NCAA tournament appearance in 17 years and will face a Pacific 10 Conference opponent for the sixth time in its last 11 appearances. The Gophers lost to eventual national champion Southern California from the Pac 10 in last year's second round after beating New Mexico in the first round.
Minnesota and Arizona are meeting for the fifth time and first since the Wildcats posted a 6-1 win in Tucson in 2008. The Gophers posted a 4-3 win in 1995 and a 5-2 win in 1993, while Arizona captured a 5-4 win in 1987.
The teams played unofficially this fall at the Pepperdine Invitational on Sept. 26-27. Minnesota won six of the seven singles matches, though Arizona's top two singles players, Andres Arango and Jay Goldman, did not participate. Minnesota's Michael Sicora beat the Wildcats' No. 3 singles player, Andres Carrasco, 6-0, 7-5 and Sebastian Gallego defeated Arizona's No. 4 player, Jason Zafiros, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4. Dino Bilankov downed the Wildcats' No. 5 player, Geoff Embry, 6-4, 6-2. The squads played four doubles matches with each team winning two.
Gallego enters the tournament with a 19-10 overall record and a five-match winning streak. He is ranked 68th in the country and was selected as the eighth alternate for the NCAA tournament. Minnesota's Tobias Wernet is ranked 114th in the country. The Gophers are ranked 35th in the final regular season rankings and are coming off a 4-0 loss to Wisconsin in the Big Ten tournament. Minnesota played 13 of its 23 matches against teams in the NCAA tournament and had wins over Pepperdine, Nebraska and Western Michigan, while suffering all 10 of its losses to top 30 teams.
Arizona has no ranked singles players in its lineup and is ranked 30th in the country. Like Minnesota, the Wildcats also played a strong schedule this year with 14 matches against tournament teams, including wins over UCLA, Brigham Young, Auburn and Tulsa. Their win over ninth-ranked UCLA was their first in 75 all-time meetings with the Bruins.
Texas is 25-2 overall and has won 12 straight matches, including last weekend's Big 12 tournament. The Longhorns' two losses are to the top two seeds in the tournament - top-seeded Virginia and second-seeded Tennessee. They played one Big Ten opponent this season, defeating Michigan 6-1. The Gophers are 0-4 all-time against Texas and last played the Longhorns in 2006.
Texas-San Antonio won the Southland Conference title and enters the tournament 13-9. The Roadrunners lost to Texas 7-0 earlier this season.
Minnesota is one of five Big Ten teams in the field. The other four are all in the same eight-team bracket as Michigan plays at Ohio State and Wisconsin heads to Illinois.
Players Mentioned
