University of Minnesota Athletics
Men's Tennis Treks To Region Championships
10/13/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
After a successful trip last season the Gophers are excited to head to the ITA Central Region Championships this year from Oct. 15-19 at Fayetteville, Ark.
Eight players advanced to the single main draw a season ago with two doubles pairs making it to the semifinals. Five Gophers made it to the round of 16 including Matic Spec and Felix Corwin for returning players.
"We played great at this tournament last year, both with all the hours of work put in and the belief we have in ourselves, the other teams better watch out for what's about to come," Ruben Weber said.
Spec-tacular
At the ITA All-Americans Spec went 1-1 in the main singles draw. He started it out with a tough fought win (6-3, 3-6, 7-5) against Christian Seraphim of Wake Forest before falling the next day (6-3, 6-3) to Dominik Koepfer out of Tulane in the round of 32.
Spec starts the season off ranked No. 38 in the ITA preseason polls. He finished last season with a 31-5 in singles and 18-12 in doubles to become the school's first 30-match singles winner since 2003 and had the program's seventh-highest single-season win percentage. He was named First Team All-Big Ten to go along with winning the ITA Central Region Rookie of the Year.
First action of the fall
Marino Alpeza will be seeing his first action this fall at the Region Championships. He is a freshman out of Mostar, Bosnia. He represented his home country in many tournaments, played in three European championships and scored his first ATP point back in January.
Coaches
The Gophers coaching duo of Geoff Young and Urban Ljubic has been one of the best in the nation. Under Young the past nine year with Ljubic part of eight of those the team has made the NCAA Tournament seven times including five straight trips. Young is coming off of winning the Big Ten Coach of the Year and ITA Central Region Coach of the Year award a season ago while Ljubic was named ITA Central Assistant Coach of the Year.
So far this season
Ruben Weber, Jeremy Lynn, Jesse Sprinkel and Justyn Levin kicked off the Gophers fall season in Tucson, Ariz., at the Wildcat Invite last weekend. Weber and Lynn went 2-1 in doubles while Sprinkel and Levin advanced to the doubles final before falling to finish 3-1 in doubles. Levin went on to win the singles consolation round of the tournament.
At the All-Americans Felix Corwin went 1-1 in the qualifying draw with a (5-7, 6-3, 6-1) win over Marco Nunez out of Florida State.
The Minnesota Daily recapped the All-Americans for both the Gopher men's and women's tennis teams. Read the story here.
Looking ahead
The Maroon and Gold will have a bit of a break after the Regional Championships before competing at the Big Ten Indoor Championships in Iowa City, Iowa starting Nov. 6.
Gophers in the news
The Minneota Daily did a feature on Jeremy Lynn. Read the story here.
Coach Young's hometown newspaper wrote a feature on him. Click here to read.
Following the Gophers?
Keep up with all the latest news and features on the Gophers men's tennis team on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @gophermtennis.
