ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Lobo men’s tennis team sits at 7-3, dropping from the rankings after a 4-3 loss to No. 54 Santa Clara. UNM now starts a stint of five matches in nine days with plenty of opportunities to face good opponents and make a climb back into the rankings. That starts this week when UNM travels to Texas Tech of the Big XII before hosting the No. 38 Denver Pioneers on Sunday at 2 p.m.
Both matches will have live scoring and live video.
New Mexico is coming off a 4-3 loss to Santa Clara, a match in which UNM lost three singles matches on the court and then one when the Lobos had a player defaulted in the first set. All three of UNM’s losses this year are by identical 4-3 scores.
What did happen on the court was Arda Azkara defeated No. 54 Christian Lerby, winning 7-5, 6-4. That moved Azkara back into the national rankings at No. 93, and it moved Azkara to 8-0 in the spring, and 3-0 against nationally-ranked opponents. Azkara was the Mountain West Player of the Week for the second time this season, and it marked the fourth time that the last five weeks a Lobo won the honor. The only week UNM didn’t get the award was the week UNM didn’t play.
Texas Tech is 6-6 on the season and 5-1 at home. It also had a 4-1 win over UTSA, a common opponent for UNM. As for the Pioneers, well they are potentially the hottest team in the nation. Denver, ranked No. 38, is 12-0 on the season, and it has road wins at Utah State (4-3), Purdue (4-3) and Wisconsin (6-1).