WACO, Texas — It will be a little while before the defending Mountain West regular season champion men’s tennis team has a spring 2020 schedule. At least they know when it will begin.
Although not necessarily the season opener, UNM, based on its stellar 2019 season, has been invited into the prestigious ITA Kickoff Weekend. The Lobos on Thursday learned that they will head to Waco, Texas to take part in one of 15 opening weekend tournaments. The Lobos, who went 14-8 last year and picked up its first conference title since 2015, will be the No. 3 seed in its four-team pod and will take on the No. 2 seed Louisville Cardinals on January 25.
UNM would then play the winner of the match between host and No. 1 seed Baylor and No. 4 seed Gonzaga on Sunday, January 26. The winner of the four-team tournament will earn a berth in the ITA National Team Indoor Championship. That will be held in Madison, Wisconsin, hosted by the Wisconsin Badgers, February 14-17.
“This is a tremendous honor for our program to be included,” said fourth-year head coach Ben Dunbar. “Playing top quality competition will help us in many facets of our season. We are happy to be included, but we will be going out there with a championship mindset.”
The entire 61-team field was drafted based upon the final 2019 rankings for teams, with New Mexico sitting at No. 69 in the final rankings. Teams did have the option of not entering the field. New Mexico’s
Opponent Louisville was ranked No. 61 in the final 2019 rankings. Baylor was No. 6 and Gonzaga was No. 75. The draw for each of the 15 tournaments is based purely on each team’s 2019 final ranking.
NOTES: UNM is one of four Mountain West teams in the field. Utah State (No. 58) will play No. 23 N.C. State in Charlottesville, Virginia and Fresno State (No. 70) will play No. 34 South Florida in Gainesville, Florida. San Diego State is the only four-seed, and as the No. 74 team, they will play at No. 11 UCLA.