MT Heads to Ann Arbor for ITA Kick-Off Weekend

Saturday, January 26

Ann Arbor, Mich.

1:00 p.m. CT

Baylor

Georgia

MT Heads to Ann Arbor for ITA Kick-Off Weekend

1/25/2019 8:54:00 AM | Men's Tennis

Bears look to advance to national event for the ninth time in program history

GETTING A GOOD GAUGE
#11 Bears Will Be Tested in ITA Kick-Off Weekend

By Jerry Hill

After the 11th-ranked Baylor men's tennis team dropped just two sets combined in its first three matches, first-year head coach Brian Boland says the Bears (3-0) will get a good "measure of where we are against the best competition in the country."

Making its first road trip of the young season, Baylor is seeded second in Ann Arbor, Mich., in a four-team regional for the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Top-seeded and 24th-ranked Michigan (0-1) faces fourth-seeded North Carolina State (2-0) at 9 a.m. Saturday, followed by the Bears versus third-seeded and 12th-ranked Georgia (0-0) at 1 p.m. at the Varsity Tennis Center.

"I'm really excited about the coming weekend to kind of measure where we are against the best competition in the country," Boland said. "No matter what, every team here is going to get two great matches. I would say if it's not the most challenging it's certainly as good as any regional out there. It's going to be a challenge, and I think it will be great for us."

Rotating the seven returning veterans, Baylor blanked Prairie View A&M and UT-Arlington in last Friday's season-opening doubleheader and then defeated Penn, 6-1, on Monday.

After playing predominantly at Nos. 5 and 6 singles as a freshman, Roy Smith stepped up to play the No. 1 spot in the win over UTA and is listed No. 1 in the lineups Boland turned in for the ITA tournament. Sitting out the fall semester, Smith made back-to-back finals at the Houston Challenger and Waco Futures pro tournaments and moved up to a career-best ATP ranking of No. 327 in the world.

"He's developed into one of the top players in the country," Boland said of Smith, who was 20-8 overall as a freshman with a 14-6 dual-match record. "He moves better, he's making great decisions on the court, he's become a more aggressive tennis player all the way around, and he's playing with a ton of confidence. As he should. He brings so much to the team, not only the court but off the court. His overall game has developed. He's become a much more complete player."

While it's obviously a significant jump to go from the bottom of the lineup to No. 1 singles, Boland said he had a number of players at Virginia "that didn't even start their first year and ended up being the No. 1 player in the country and in some cases winning the NCAA singles championship, like Ryan Shane (2015)."

"I think it's actually a healthy process for a young player to come to college and have to battle a little bit, and they can see how much they develop and improve based on moving up in the lineup and facing stiffer competition," Boland said. "For Roy, he's earned it, he's worked hard, and he's embraced every moment of being our No. 1 singles player right now."

The rest of Baylor's projected lineup has seniors Johannes Schretter and Will Little at 2 and 3 singles, followed by sophomores Matias Soto and Sven Lah and then either junior Constantin Frantzen or senior Jimmy Bendeck at 6.

"I feel great about the group," said Boland, who is still waiting on two other players to become eligible and a third to come back from illness, giving the team even more depth. "There's a lot of experience and they work so well together and they're all excellent leaders. I couldn't be happier with the group of players we have. It's already been an exciting year, and I cannot wait to continue to see this team come together and improve."

Other than the constants of Soto and Frantzen at No. 3 doubles, Boland has rotated several guys into the other two spots. In the fall, Bendeck and Lah were ranked No. 3 in the country after compiling an 11-1 record and winning the ITA All-American Championships.

Boland said the doubles are "always a work in progress," but he is confident in all three teams.

"We have so many great doubles players on this team and a number of guys have played together over the years," he said. "So, we have a little bit of an advantage from that standpoint. Right now, I believe we have a combination of three great teams. We'll kind of see how it evolves and develops throughout the course of the next several weeks, and eventually we'll figure out exactly what we want to do."

The challenging part for Boland is trying to set a lineup with a team that has so much depth. When the other three players are available, it will give him 11 players for basically six spots in the lineup.

"We have so much depth on this team, it's always going to be a challenge to decide who's going to play and when," he said. "They just know that they can do their best and they'll have to play whatever role they're provided each and every day throughout the season. And I think each and every player on this team accepts that. That's part of being on a great team with tremendous depth."

Georgia has a pair of top-20 ranked singles players in Jan Zielinski and Emil Reinberg, but the Bulldogs do not have five-star recruit Trent Bryde in the lineup yet. Zielinski and Robert Loeb are also ranked No. 51 in doubles.

"Georgia's always had a great program and they're a talented group and certainly have the depth," Boland said. "It's going to be a great match, and we'll be able to kind of see where we're at. I'm pleased that we get to see this level of competition early in the season."

In addition to the four NCAA national championships Boland won at Virginia, he also captured six ITA National Indoor Championships. The winners of Saturday's first-round matchups advance to play in Sunday's championship, with the region winner then going on to play in the ITA National Indoor Championships Feb. 15-17 in Chicago, Ill.

"It's always a great event to try to qualify for early in the year so you can get those extra matches against the best competition in the country," Boland said. "We're certainly going to be tested this weekend, and I think it's the best thing for us."

Unranked, the Baylor women (4-1) have a shorter trip for the ITA Kick-Off Weekend, traveling down I-35 to Austin. After sweeping two doubleheaders over an extended weekend, the Bears will face Wichita State (0-0) at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Texas Tennis Center and either sixth-ranked Texas (0-0) or Middle Tennessee (1-1) on Sunday.

WACO, Texas – The 11^th-ranked Baylor men's tennis team will hit the road for the first time this season and compete in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend event, hosted Jan. 26-27 at the Varsity Tennis Center in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Baylor (3-0) will be one of four teams competing in Ann Arbor over the weekend. The second-seeded Bears will first face No. 3 seed and 12^th-ranked Georgia at 1 p.m. CT Saturday. Prior to that match at 9 a.m., 24^th-ranked and top-seeded Michigan faces No. 4 seed NC State.

The winners of those two matches advance to the following day's championship match, while the two losing teams will square off in a consolation match Sunday morning.

The winner of the championship match will advance to next month's ITA Division I National Team Indoor Championships in Chicago, Ill.

The Bears have competed in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in eight of the 10 years of its existence, winning all 16 matches and advancing to the national event each year. For only the second time in nine years, BU will not serve as a host of the event.

Baylor recently posted three wins at home to open the 2019 season, going a combined 20-1 against Prairie View A&M, UT Arlington and Penn last weekend.

The 12^th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs open their 2019 season with Saturday's matchup against BU and are coming off a 2018 campaign that saw them finish 13-11 overall and earn a bid to the NCAA Championship where they fell to Minnesota in the opening round.

Georgia leads the all-time series over the Bears, 4-2, and the Bulldogs have won three of the last four matchups. However, the last meeting came at the 2017 ITA National Team Indoor Championships where the Bears pulled off a 4-2 upset over the 13^th-ranked Bulldogs.

Georgia has two ranked singles players in No. 2 Jan Zielinski and No. 15 Emil Reinberg while Zielinski partners with Robert Loeb to be the 51^st-ranked team in doubles action.

24^th-ranked and host Michigan is 0-1 on the year after dropping its season opener, 4-3, at No. 22 Alabama last Saturday. The Wolverines have one ranked doubles team in Andrew Fenty and Mattias Siimar at No. 35.

The Bears are 0-1 all-time against the Wolverines with the lone meeting taking place on Feb. 22, 1993 where Michigan topped Baylor, 5-2, in Waco.

NC State (2-0) is coming off a home doubleheader sweep against Northwestern and Campbell on Sunday. BU is 1-0 all-time against NC State with Baylor earning a 4-0 sweep over the Wolfpack in the 2007 NCAA Championship quarterfinals.

Following the ITA Kick-Off Weekend, the Bears will return home to host three straight matches. BU will face South Florida on Friday, Feb. 1 at 6 p.m. and then play a doubleheader against Nebraska and UTRGV on Sunday, Feb. 3. Those matches are slated for an 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. CT start, respectively.

For more information on the Baylor men's tennis team all season long, follow the team's official social media accounts: @BaylorMTennis.