2016 Balloon Fiesta Invitational Schedule & Standings
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When it’s October and there are balloons in the air (literally 100s of them), it signals the start of Fall in many eyes of people in Albuquerque. But for fans of The University of New Mexico’s tennis team, those balloons also signal the start of the Balloon Fiesta Invitational tennis tournament, which serves as the unofficial kick-off to the 2016-17 men’s tennis season.
The Balloon Fiesta Invitational will feature five teams, 12 courts, two sites and a unique flight-play set-up that will make for lots of matches and lots of action. The two sites are both at the UNM athletic facilities, with all doubles matches taking place at the McKinnon Family Tennis Stadium and the singles matches being split between McKinnon and the Linda Estes Tennis Center.
Joining the Lobos over the three-day tournament is New Mexico State, Northern Arizona, Abilene Christian and Air Force. The tournament will be a flighted event, with each doubles team, or singles player, competing in four matches over the course of the tournament. Each flight will have its own standings and winner.
For the Lobos, they will go into the Balloon Fiesta without Hayden Sabatka and Bart Van Leijsen, who are competing at the ITA All-American regionals in Oklahoma. The Lobos will put out Ricky Hernandez-Tong in Flight 1, Sean Baklini in Flight 2, Rodolfo Jauregui in Flight 3, Jorge Escutia in Flight 4 and Michael Tran in Flight 5. The Lobos won’t have a player in flight six, but New Mexico State will have a second player there to fill out the bracket.
In doubles for UNM, Hernandez-Tong and Escutia will play in Flight 1, Baklini and Jauregui will play in Flight 2, and Michael Tran will team up with Simon D’Alfonso of New Mexico State for a cross-school team in Flight 3.
The tournament will get underway at 9 a.m. on each day with doubles matches. On Friday there will be just the one round of doubles matches, and on Saturday and Sunday, doubles matches (one set) will take place at 9 and 10 a.m.
Singles matches will play out on both the McKinnon and Estes courts at 10 a.m. and at 2 p.m. on Friday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday, and at noon on Sunday.
The Lobos schedule will see them play at 9 a.m. on Friday morning in doubles against Abilene Christian’s doubles teams. UNM will only play once in singles on Friday, and that’s at 10 a.m. against NAU. The Lobos will play all of its singles matches at the McKinnon Family Tennis Center.
On Saturday UNM will face off versus the New Mexico State doubles teams at 9 a.m. and then Northern Arizona squad at 10 before taking on the Abilene Christian squad in singles matches at 11 a.m. Saturday is a full day as the Lobos will finish at 3 p.m. on the singles courts with Air Force.
On Sunday, UNM will play its last doubles round at 9 a.m., facing off with Air Force before playing New Mexico State at noon in its final singles flights.
Make sure to check back at GoLobos.com each night for full results, and to @UNMMenTennis on Twitter for updates.