University of Minnesota Athletics
Men's Tennis Announces 2015-16 Schedule
9/8/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
The 2015-16 Men's Tennis Schedule
The University of Minnesota men's tennis team has announced its 2015-16 schedule. The Gophers will take part in four fall tournaments and have 24 dual matches slated for the spring with 10 against teams that ended the season ranked in the final ITA rankings.
"I am excited for our schedule this year. It has some new teams such as Oregon and Columbia, who will be strong opponents," head coach Geoff Young said. "It will be challenging, but I believe we will be ready for battle when January comes."
The Gophers will be looking to defend their Big Ten regular season title after winning a share of it a season ago. They will be looking to replace strong senior leadership in Mathieu Froment, Eric Frueh, Jack Hamburg and Leandro Toledo but return plenty of strong talent.
This year's team will feature two seniors in Ruben Weber and Tucker Saxon, one junior in Jeremy Lynn and two sophomores who made big contributions as freshmen in Felix Corwin and Matic Spec. They add three freshmen in the fall in Marino Alpeza, Justyn Levin and Jesse Sprinkel. They will add one more by the time dual match season starts.
Weber, Lynn, Sprinkel and Levin will kick off the action when they head to the Arizona Wildcat Invitational held at the Ventana Canyon Resort. Corwin and Spec will compete at the ITA All-American starting Oct. 5 in Tulsa, Okla. The rest of the Maroon and Gold will hit the courts at the ITA Regionals Oct. 15-19.
The Big Ten Indoors will be held in Iowa City, Iowa Nov. 6-9. Last season the Gophers went 7-3 in doubles play and saw Felix Corwin defeat teammate Matic Spec in the singles championship to bring home the indoors crown.
Fall play will end for Minnesota Nov. 13-15 at the Lakewood Ranch Invitational in Lakewood Ranch, Fla.
The Gophers spring schedule will start at the Baseline Tennis Center on January 16 with matches against DePaul and South Dakota State. Minnesota is 2-0 all-time against DePaul and will be playing South Dakota State for the first time in program history.
On January 23-24 the team will head to New York City for the ITA Kick-Off with Columbia, Stanford and Virginia Tech all competing as well. The Gophers will wrap up January play heading to Oklahoma State on Jan. 31.
A busy February will start with three home matches. They take on South Florida on Feb. 5 before their first conference match against Wisconsin on Feb. 13 and a match against Drake on Feb. 14. The Gophers take a trip to play Dartmouth and Columbia Feb. 19-21 and finish out the month at home on Feb. 27 against Army and Illinois State.
March will start with a trip to the West Coast to take on Oregon and Washington March 4-6 to finish out the nonconference schedule. Nebraska comes to town March 25 and the Gophers finish out March at Iowa on March 27.
An April full of Big Ten play starts off with a trip to Illinois taking on the Fighting Illini and Northwestern the first weekend. The middle of the month will see Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State all come to Baseline. Regular season play wraps up with Purdue and Indiana.
The Big Ten Tournament will be held at Baseline Tennis Center this year from April 28-May 1. Last season the Gophers were bounced by Ohio State in the 2nd round.
The Gophers will be aiming to be play in the NCAA Tournament come May. In nine seasons under Young the Gophers have advanced to the NCAA Tournament seven times.
Players Mentioned
