The University of New Mexico men’s tennis team, defending Mountain West regular season champions, will open its defense of that title this weekend in Lubbock where they face off against Pacific, Arizona and No. 19 ranked Texas Tech.
Head Coach Bart Scott heads into his second year at UNM after winning the Mountain West in his first season along with conference Coach of the Year honors.
The squad will be led by their ITA No. 8 doubles team of junior Hayden Sabatka and sophomore Bart Van Leijsen. The two who advanced to the USTA/ITA semifinals in November, hope to repeat that performance by being invited to National Indoors in Charlottesville, Va. later in February. They both competed individually at the National Indoors in the Fall in New York as well.
This year’s No. 41 ranked Lobos will host their first home match February 26 against DePaul after 13 straight matches to open the season away from home. In all UNM will play 12 matches at home streak including Utah, BYU, Tulsa, the Mountain-Pacific Invitational and other Mountain West opponents.
The 2016 schedule is very similar to the rigorous 2015 schedule which helped UNM get selected as an at-large for the NCAA Tournament last season. If they win two matches during their play at UCLA, the Lobos will qualify for the National Team Indoors.
The Lobos lost three seniors after the 2014-15 season, but return eight players. Michael Tran returns after redshirting last year. The team also welcomes Ricky Hernandez-Tong as a freshman.
The Lobos also return sophomores Sean Baklini, Jorge Escutia, Augustus Ge and Bart Van Leijsen. The only true juniors on the team are Bryan Cunningham, Rodolfo Jauregui and Hayden Sabatka. There are no seniors on the 2015-16 squad.
Van Leijsen tied for the team lead last season with 18 wins (going 18-11 overall), and he and Sabatka teamed up to go 13-4 in doubles last year. They also went 14-4 in doubles in the fall.
For the fall season, Sean Baklini led the team with eight wins, as UNM spread the wins around with six of the eight players picking up at least five wins in the fall. UNM should enter the spring strong in doubles play as along with the team of Sabatka/Van Leijsen, Agustus Ge and Rodolfo Jauregui teamed up for a 5-1 record in the fall.
The Lobos are hosting the Mountain-Pacific Invitational March 11 and 12 where No. 51 San Francisco and No. 68 Utah State will compete. UNM will face other ranked teams later in the season like No. 38 San Diego State and No. 28 Tulsa.
Overall, the team is slated to face 14 ranked teams to start the season. The season will end with a home match against No. 53 Denver on April 24. After hosting the Mountain West Tournament, UNM will travel to Las Vegas in late April for the 2016 tournament.
2015-16 Men’s Tennis Season Preview
