Men's Tennis Opens MW Schedule Hosting Nevada

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The red hot No. 64 New Mexico Lobos will host the Nevada Wolf Pack on Thursday at 1 p.m. in the Mountain West opener for both teams.

The Lobos are on a hot streak, having won five straight matches, with most of them blowouts.

Now, the Lobos will have to take on a Nevada squad that is 9-4 on the season and enters on a three-match winning streak of its own.

The Lobos and first eyar head coach Rob Bareford have put together a pretty simple equation, and that’s win the doubles point, and more specifically, win one of the two matches between No. 2 and No. 3.  That’s because UNM’s No. 1 team of Aram Noroozian and Georgio Samaha are 17-5 on the season and 11-2 in the spring, earning a No. 67 ranking.

They have been so hot that as long as UNM gets one other win, it’s been a 1-0 start nearly every time.  That’s been working since the Lobos have three long winning streaks in singles.  Noroozian at No. 1 has won eight in a row, as has Avery Tallakson.  Daniil Kakhniuk has won six in a row.

Couple that with both Georgio Samaha and Aditya Balsekar getting hot and UNM is playing its best tennis right now.

For Nevada, the Wolf Pack have been led by Yousef Kadiri, who is 25-9 on the year and playing No. 1 singles.

Other than Utah State’s one-off early conference match against San Diego State, most Mountain West teams are opening conference play this weekend.  The league is playing well as a whole, as six of the seven teams are coming off of wins, with Nevada owning a three-match winning streak, Utah State four, UNM five and Boise State six.