Lobos Head to Arkansas for a Pair
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Coming off a title in the Second Annual Jack Kennedy Classic, the Lobos are now headed to SEC country for a pair of matches against host Arkansas and a neutral match against South Alabama. The match with Arkansas will take play at 4 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday, January 26 and the match with South Alabama will be at noon Mountain on Saturday.
Both matches will be live streamed, and live stats will be available on Friday against Arkansas.
The Lobos split opening weekend, losing 4-3 to Cal Poly and then taking out East Tennessee State 7-0 on Sunday to clinch the title via tiebreaker with 10 total points won in the tournament. The match with East Tennessee State saw UNM play much looser, and with more flow than UNM’s first match. Arda Azkara, Aram Noroozian and Georgio Samaha both swept their two singles matches on the week, with Samaha’s win his sixth straight dating back to the fall, and Noroozian’s his fifth straight dating back to the fall.
Azkara was named Mountain West Player of the Week for the fifth time in his career as he has earned that award, and it technically is three straight going back to last year. Freshman Nicolas Recoura went 2-0 in doubles with a win over the nation’s No. 55 team to earn Freshman of the Week honors, the eighth time a Lobo has done so under head coach Chris Russell.
New Mexico and Arkansas have played each other 11 times, and the lone Lobo win was the first meeting, a 6-1 win in 1970. The last meeting was in 2015, a 4-2 Arkansas win. UNM’s history with South Alabama is better, with UNM leading the series 7-3, including three wins over a ranked South Alabama squad in 1996. The meeting between the two is the first since 2012 when UNM took a 6-1 decision over the Jaguars.
The Razorbacks are 2-1 on the season with wins over Hawai’i and Illinois State, but they are coming off a 6-1 loss to Middle Tennessee State. The No. 1 singles match should pair No. 122 Azkara against No. 117 Gerard Planelles Ripoll, who is 8-4 on the year. South Alabama will enter the match 2-0 with wins over Samford and Southern to its credit.