Men's Tennis Set To Host ULL, Florida
1/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Jan. 20, 2010
WACO, Texas- The sixth-ranked men's tennis team will get the 41st season of Baylor tennis underway when it plays host on Friday, Jan. 22 to Louisiana Lafayette at 3 p.m. The Bears will follow that up with a 1 p.m. contest on Sunday, Jan. 24 against 11th-ranked Florida.
SCOUTING LOUISIANA-LAFAYETTE: The unranked Ragin' Canjuns enter year three of the Mark Jeffrey coaching era with one senior, two juniors, six sophomores and one freshman on their roster. In Jeffrey's first season, Louisiana-Lafayette posted a 16-7 record with a 2-1 Sun Belt conference record. The 16 wins tied for the most by a Ragin' Canjun team since 1994.
PLAYERS €ˆTO €ˆWATCH: Louisiana-Lafayette returns five of the eight players from last year's squad, including senior and three-year letter winner Piotr Banas and sophomore Javier Pulgar. The duo combined to go 34-8 in singles last season while playing mostly at the first and second position for the Ragin' Cajuns.
SERIES RECORD: The Bears have owned the Ragin' Cajuns of late winning five straight matches against them dating back to 1998. Overall, Baylor leads the series 6-5 with Louisiana-Lafayette having won five out of six in the 1970s and 80s.
LAST €ˆTIME €ˆAGAINST LOUISIANA-LAFAYETTE: The second-ranked Bears swept the 48th-ranked Ragin' Cajuns, 7-0, in Waco on January 30, 2007. Baylor won all three doubles matches and won all six singles matches in two sets to claim the victory.
SCOUTING FLORIDA: The 11th-ranked Florida Gators come to Waco for the second match of their season after opening at home against Central Florida on Friday, Jan. 22. Andy Jackson in his ninth season as the Gators coach, has a roster of one senior, two juniors, three sophomores, one red-shirt sophomore and three freshmen. The Gators are coming off a year that saw them go 18-9 (8-5 in SEC play) and advance to the second round of the NCAA €ˆtournament. It was Florida's 19th consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament.
PLAYERS €ˆTO €ˆWATCH: Florida is led by returning players Carlos Cueto, last year's SEC €ˆfreshman of the year, and sophomore Alex Lacroix. Cueto was 11-9 at the No. 1 position last season, while Lacroix, who earned All-SEC €ˆhonors in 2009, was 19-7 in dual match play. Lacroix is currently ranked seventh in singles, while teaming up with red shirt sophomore Antoine Benneteau to be ranked 10th in doubles.
SERIES RECORD: The Bears hold a 4-3 series advantage over the Gators in a rivalry that dates back to 2004. Since 2004, the two have played each other once every season except for in 2005 when they played twice. Baylor won the first three matches, but Florida has taken three of the last four. At home the Bears are 1-1 against Florida, while in Gainesville the Gators hold a 2-1 series lead. The Bears are 2-0 in neutral site meetings.
LAST €ˆTIME €ˆAGAINST FLORIDA: Last season the Bears traveled to Gainesville on Jan. 25 in only their second match of the season. The 10th-ranked Gators sent the seventh-ranked Bears home with a 7-0 shutout loss. It was the first time the Bears had been shut out since a 7-0 loss at then No. 1 Virginia on March 1, 2008.
LAST TIME OUT: In their first action of the fall season, the Bears took six athletes to the Sherwood Collegiate Cup in Thousand Oaks, Calif. At the highly selective singles and doubles tournament, Baylor competed against tennis powerhouses Stanford, UCLA and USC. Senior Denes Lukacs advanced all of the way to the title match before falling to 54th-ranked Bradley Klahn of Stanford, 6-3, 6-4. However, Attila Bucko won the consolation title for the Bears, defeating teammate Dominik Mueller 6-4, 7-6(5) in the title match.
BAYLOR IN SEASON OPENERS: The Bears have won eight straight spring dual match openers dating back to a 2001 loss to 16th-ranked SMU €ˆon the road. Under Matt Knoll, Baylor is 11-2 to start the season and overall in program history the Bears are 24-16.
BAYLOR €ˆIN €ˆHOME OPENERS: Currently the Bears are on a 15-match home opener win streak with their last loss coming in 1995 to UT-San Antonio. Baylor sports a perfect 13-0 home opener record under Knoll. During their 40-year history, Baylor is 27-13 in such matches.
BAYLOR AT HOME: The friendly confines of the Baylor Tennis Center having been very kind to the Bears. Over the eight years of its existence Baylor is 114-6 in matches played in Waco. Under Knoll the Bears are 156-21when playing at home including matches played at the Streich Courts, the Baylor Tennis Center and various indoor courts in the area.
BAYLOR IN JANUARY: During the month of January the Bears have produced a 23-5 record under head coach Matt Knoll. Baylor was on an eight-match win streak until last season's Jan. 25 loss to No. 10 Florida. Before Knoll arrived in Waco the Bears had only played 13 total matches in January, posting a 6-7 record.
BAYLOR VS. NON-CONFERENCE OPPONENTS: The Knoll era has brought success in both conference and non-conference with Baylor sporting a 230-63 mark in non-league play over the last 13 years.
BAYLOR VS. RANKED TEAMS: The Matt Knoll era has seen Baylor play 316 ranked opponents in 13 years with the Bears going 232-84 in those matches. Last season the Bears were 20-6 against teams in the ITA's rankings of the top 75 college teams. Baylor's best year against ranked foes came in 2005 when they went 29-1 against the nation's elite with the only loss coming to No. 6 in the NCAA €ˆTournament finals. The Bears had their worst season against ranked foes in Knoll's first year on the job going in 1-11 in those matches.
Quotes- Head Coach Matt Knoll
ON PLAYING A SEASON OPENER...
"You always have butterflies; that is what makes it fun. The first match is always unique. It is a new season. You got new guys. You got old guys in different roles. You got a lot of different things going on. It should be fun."
ON THE BEARS LINEUP...
"It is probably more up in the air then it has been certainly in recent memory. I don't really know how the pieces are going to fit together. I think that this weekend won't even decide it. I think that is something that is going to evolve over the course of the year. We have eight really good tennis players here and all of them can play. It is going to be a process to see who goes where. We know Denes (Lukacs) is going to play one, but really after that there is a lot of questions about how it is going to go.In doubles, I think we know Denes and Maros (Horny) are going to be a doubles team and I think after that there is a little question about how it could go. There is a lot of stuff yet undetermined and it will be a process throughout the whole spring."
ON LOUISIANA LAFAYETTE...
"They are better than you might think. I think if we don't expect their guys to be good tennis players, we are going to be in trouble. They are going to put six good tennis players on the court. There coach is relatively new and he has brought in some more talented guys. It may be an ideal first match in that it is a match we could lose, but if we play our best tennis we will be fine."
ON FLORIDA...
"We had a couple of matches last year, Florida being one of them, where we got beat 7-0. I don't think that is a characteristic of a championship team. Certainly Florida has very, very good players and we have a ton of respect for them, but we have got to show we can get into every match if we are going to try to do the things we want to do. I think it is the first match of the season against a team that has the potential to give us a beat down if we don't do the things we need to do."
