Men's Tennis Opens Season with Four Home Matches

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Jan. 22, 2015

CHARLOTTESVILLE – The third-ranked Virginia men’s tennis team will open the 2015 season this weekend with home matches Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Boyd Tinsley Courts at the Boar’s Head Sports Club. The Cavaliers host competition during the ITA Kickoff Weekend Friday and Saturday before playing a doubleheader Sunday.

The Cavaliers are one of 15 teams hosting play in the ITA Kickoff Weekend, which serves as qualifying for next month’s ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Chicago. Virginia meets No. 54 George Washington at 6 p.m. Friday in the opening round. No. 43 Louisville and No. 51 VCU play in the other first round match at 2 p.m. On Saturday, the winners will meet in the championship match (6 p.m.) for a place in the National Team Indoor field, while the losers will meet in a consolation match (2 p.m.).

On Sunday, the Cavaliers host a pair of non-conference matches, meeting Liberty at noon and Morgan State at 5 p.m. This week’s four matches will be the only home competition for the Cavaliers until March.

Admission for all home matches is free. Live scoring and video of home matches is available at VirginiaSports.com.

This weekend’s matches will be played using the new format recently adopted for Division I tennis. There will be no-ad scoring in both singles and doubles. The three doubles matches will be one set to six, with a tiebreaker at 6-all. The six singles matches will be two out of three sets, with tiebreakers at 6-all. The intermission between doubles and singles will also be shortened and there will be no warm-up with opponents prior to the start of each match.

Virginia is ranked in the preseason top five of the ITA rankings for the eighth consecutive year. Three Cavaliers are ranked in the latest singles rankings, sophomore Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (Charlotte, N.C.) at No. 4, junior Ryan Shane (Falls Church, Va.) at No. 6 and junior Mac Styslinger (Birmingham, Ala.) at No. 47. Senior captain Mitchell Frank (Annandale, Va.) will make his season debut for the Cavaliers this weekend after not playing collegiate events in the fall.

Louisville features the nation’s top-ranked singles player in Sebastian Stiefelmeyer. VCU and George Washington both have ties to Virginia with former Cavaliers serving as assistant coaches. Houston Barrick (Class of 2010) is the associate head coach at VCU and Philippe Oudshoorn (Class of 2012) is the assistant coach at George Washington.