Men's Tennis Preview: No. 3 Virginia
2/12/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
FORT WORTH, Texas - The No. 17 TCU men's tennis team is set to take part in the 2015 ITA National Indoor Team Championships on Feb. 13-16 in Chicago, Ill., and will take on No. 3 Virginia in the opening round on Friday at 9 a.m.
The Horned Frogs (5-0) will be participating in the indoor championships for the first time since 2001 against the Cavaliers (5-0) at the Midtown Athletic Club. TCU has participated in the event in 11 previous seasons and were ITA National Team Indoor finalists in 1992, the year before head coach David Roditi arrived on campus as a freshman.
Joining TCU and Virginia in the 16-team field are No. 1 USC, No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 4 Georgia, No. 5 Illinois, No. 6 Duke, No. 7 North Carolina, No. 8 Ohio State, No. 9 Texas, No. 10 UCLA, No. 10 Baylor, No. 13 Cal, No. 15 Columbia, No. 19 Ole Miss and No. 22 Penn State.
TCU Noteables
The Horned Frogs are holding down the No. 17 ranking as a team in the ITA poll after defeating No. 58 New Mexico at home last week, 6-1, and upending No. 40 Tulsa on the road, 4-0.
The Frogs are 5-0 to start the season for the first time since 2008 and have defeated four ranked opponents. TCU has four ranked singles players in the ITA poll with No. 18 Cameron Norrie, No. 48 Nick Chappell, No. 85 Facundo Lugones and No. 112 Guillermo Nuñez. The team currently has three doubles pairs ranked in the national poll as well with the No. 14 duo of Norrie and Trevor Johnson, No. 24 Chappell and Will Stein and No. 43 Johnson and Blake Wiggins.
Johnson leads TCU with 15 wins on the season in singles play, while five other Frogs have double-digit singles wins. Stein boasts 13 on the season, while Norrie is 12-2 overall and 5-2 against ranked opponents. Nuñez sits at 11-4 on the season, while Arnau Dachs and Trey Daniel each have 10 wins.
In doubles action, the senior duo of Chappell and Stein have 13 wins on the season and a 5-2 record against ranked opponents. Since pairing up a few matches ago, Hudson Blake and Trevor Johnson have been undefeated and post a 3-0 overall record.
Scouting the Cavaliers
The Cavaliers have been rolling to start the spring season and have only dropped one singles match in their 5-0 start. Virginia opened the season with 7-0 wins over George Washington, Liberty and Morgan State, while also defeating Louisville, 5-0. In their most recent match, the Cavaliers downed VCU, 9-1.
On the singles side, Virginia boasts the No. 1 overall singles player in sophomore Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, who is the sixth Cavalier to hold the top ranking. Kwiatkowski is 20-3 overall this season and 3-0 in dual matches. Ryan Shane also holds a top-5 singles ranked and sits at No. 4 with a 13-2 overall record. Virginia has one final ranked singles player in No. 61 Mac Styslinger, who is 9-2 overall.
The Cavaliers also have two doubles ranked teams with Shane and Luca Corinteli sitting at No. 37, while Styslinger and Kwiatkowski check in at No. 41.
All-Time Series
TCU and Virginia will be facing each other for the third time in program history, with the series split at 1-1. The Frogs won the first matchup, 4-2, in Charlottesville, Va., in 2004, while the Cavaliers stole a 6-1 win in 2005 in Fort Worth. This will be the first meeting for the two teams at a neutral site.
Live Results
Live scoring of all matches will be available at FightingIllini.com, while a live video stream can be found at PlaySight.com. A final recap and results will be available on GoFrogs.com following the completion of competition each day. In-match updates can also be found by following TCU men's tennis on twitter (@TCUMensTennis).
Players Mentioned
