Men's Tennis Preview: Wisconsin and UIW
2/28/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
FORT WORTH, Texas - The No. 15 TCU men's tennis team will return to the friendly confines of the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center and will take on Wisconsin and Incarnate Word in a double-header on Sunday, March 1.
The Horned Frogs (6-3) will first take on the Badgers (2-7) at Noon, before facing the Cardinals (5-6) at 4:30 p.m. Due to the weather, the match will be played indoors and admission to the match will be free for fans. Those in attendance can also enjoy pizza courtesy of Buffalo Bros., in between the doubles and singles portion of the match, with the fans also being able to participate in a prize court sponsored by Smoothie King.
TCU Notables
The Frogs moved up to No. 15 in the ITA team rankings this week and the team is coming off a 4-1 victory over Rice last weekend.
Trevor Johnson has been racking up the wins for TCU and is on a five-match winning streak and leads the team with 17 singles wins on the season. Johnson is one of seven players with double-digit wins, as No. 28 Cameron Norrie, fellow freshman Guillermo Nuñez and senior Will Stein all have 13 wins on the season. No. 48 Nick Chappell, Arnau Dachs and Trey Daniel have all totaled 10 wins on the season.
No. 20 Chappell and Stein lead the charge in doubles action, with the duo posting 14 wins this season and six over ranked opponents. Norrie and Nuñez have been playing at the No. 2 position and have three wins on the season, while Hudson Blake and Johnson have paired up on court three for four wins on the season.
Scouting the Badgers
Wisconsin only has a pair of victories this season and recently picked up win No. 2 with a 5-2 victory over Marquette on Feb. 18. The Badgers also beat Seattle, 4-0, in the second match of the season. TCU will be the ninth ranked opponent Wisconsin has faced this season.
In singles play, the Badgers has amassed a total of 14 wins, and the group of Badger freshman account for 12 of the 14 victories. In addition, only five members of the squad hold singles records of .500 or better, and three of those five are freshman newcomers.
A freshman pair owns the only victory over a ranked opponent this season, as Jose Maria Martin de Olivia Carranza and Josef Dodridge defeated Notre Dame's pair of No. 9 Eddy Covalschi and Josh Hagar, 6-1.
Scouting the Cardinals
Incarnate Word is coming off a week where the Cardinals went 2-1, with wins over Midwestern State University (6-1) and Laredo Community College (7-0), before dropping a 6-1 loss to No. 13 Texas A&M.
Leonard Ivic leads Incarnate Word with 11 wins on the season, including a 7-4 record at No. 1 singles. Tucker Brown has posted nine wins on the season, while Josip Smoljan and Joey Vatanadilok have eight singles wins on the season.
Brown and Vatanadilok are leading in doubles action, as the duo have posted seven wins, including a 6-3 mark in dual matches.
All-Time Series
TCU and Wisconsin will be facing each other for the fifth time in program history, with the Badgers holding the advantage in the series with a 3-1 record. The Badgers won the only other match played in Fort Worth, 5-2, in 2008 which was the last time the two teams had met.
The Frogs and Incarnate Word are facing off for the first time in program history.
Live Results
Fans who can't attend can watch live results at TCU.StatBroadcast.Com, while a final recap of the matches against the Badgers and Cardinals can be found at GoFrogs.com following the completion of the competitions. In-match updates can also be found by following TCU men's tennis on twitter (@TCUMensTennis).
Players Mentioned
