MIDLAND, Texas – The University of New Mexico men’s and women’s tennis teams will kick off the 2014 fall season this weekend at the Racquet Club Invitational taking place in Midland, Texas. The three-day tournament will run from Sept. 12-14 and will feature over 20 collegiate teams from around the country.
Rodolfo Jauregui, Sean Baklini, James Hignett, and Bart Van Leijsen will represent the Lobos on the men’s side. This event will serve as Baklini’s and Van Leijsen’s first collegiate tennis tournament as Baklini redshirted last season and Van Leijsen is one of UNM’s three new roster additions for the 2014-15 season.
Jauregui, Hignett, and Van Leijsen will all compete in the 32-draw Flight No. 1 men’s singles bracket. Van Leijsen will face off against Jacoby Lewis from Texas, Jauregui will face Abilene Christian’s Guillherme Gesser, and Hignett will battle eighth-seeded Michael Feucht from Lamar. Baklini will compete in the 16-draw Flight No. 2 men’s singles bracket and will face ACU’s Henry Adams in his first match of the weekend. None of the Lobos’ first round opponents received ITA preseason rankings.
Baklini and Jauregui will team up for doubles competition and will take on Tulsa’s freshmen duo Chase Gordon and Daniel Santos in the first round. Hignett and Van Leijsen will face Daniel Armengol and Mario Muniesa of UT-Arlington. Armengol and Muniesa are also freshmen, which may work to senior Hignett’s advantage.
“It’s a great tournament that features a lot of top players from around Texas and around the country,” interim head coach Bart Scott said. “It will give our players a lot of early experience against good competition.”
Representing the women’s team will be lone senior Natasha Smith, recent addition sophomore Gabrielle Otero, and returning sophomores Rachana Bhat and Emily Olivier.
Smith, Otero, and Bhat will compete in the 64-draw Flight No. 1 women’s singles bracket. Ninth-seeded Smith will take on SMU’s Yana Erkeeva in the first round, fourteenth-seeded Otero will face Alexis Czapinski from Kansas, and Bhat will face Savannah Durkin from Rice. Bhat finished the 2014 regular season with a perfect singles record of 16-0, so the Tucson, Ariz. native will be looking to continue that win streak into the fall season. Olivier will compete in the 16-draw Flight No. 2 women’s singles bracket. She will battle Maddie Moore from Texas State for her first match of the Racquet Club Invitational.
“We are excited to get under way this coming weekend in Midland,” head coach Erica Jasper said. “The team has been training exceptionally hard on and off the court, so they are ready to compete! This tournament should provide the team with some good opportunities for competitive match play—while also giving us a chance as coaches to take a look at some different doubles combinations.”
Fifth-seeded Smith and Otero will team up for the doubles competition and will square off against ACU’s Kaysie Hermsdorf and Lucile Pothier in the first round. Bhat and Olivier will take on sixth-seeded doubles team Victoria Kisialeva and Kim Suriv from Penn State. Kisialeva and Suriv received an ITA preseason doubles ranking of 47, so Olivier and Bhat will have to come ready to fight and focus in their first doubles match if they want to take down the top-fifty duo. Neither of these UNM doubles teams have competed together in doubles before.
Follow along on the UNM Tennis Facebook and Twitter pages for updates and scores throughout the weekend! Recaps and results will also be posted on GoLobos.com at the end of each day.
ALL TOURNAMENT DRAWS AND A FULL LIST OF SCHOOLS COMPETING CAN BE FOUND AT THE FOLLOWING LINK: http://rc10s.com/
The Racquet Club Collegiate Invitational is an NCAA sanctioned event for men and women. It is by invitation only and is always around the middle of September every year.