• Men's Tennis Home
• News
• Schedule/Results
• Roster
• Coaches
• Support Staff
• Live Video
• Aggies in the ATP
• Statistics
• History
• Media Guide
• Quick Facts
• Facilities
• Big 12 Standings
• Summer Camps
• Tennis Recuiting Questionnaire
• 
• 

Feb. 4, 2010

Directions to The Downtown Club at the Met in PDF Format

Click Here To Follow The Aggies on Twitter

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The Texas A&M men's tennis team (3-1) will battle eighth-ranked Texas for the bragging rights to the Texas Cup, an annual non-conference dual match held between the two in-state rivals scheduled for Friday, Feb. 5 at 6 p.m. (CT) at The Downtown Club at the Met in Houston.

The Aggies, who moved to No. 17 in the latest Campbell/ITA rankings released on Thursday, are looking to rebound from a 1-1 week where they were edged by Fresno State, 4-3, in the opening round, but later defeated Oklahoma State, 4-1, in the home-hosted ITA Kick-Off Weekend tournament held at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.

This will be the third-straight year in which the Aggies and Longhorns (3-0) have renewed the non-conference series that had been dormant for four years prior to the 2008 spring season. Last season, A&M lost a 7-0 decision to UT, but won the regular-season State Farm Lone Star Showdown by a 4-3 count in College Station. Texas has won all five Texas Cup meetings between the two schools.

"We're excited about our match against Texas," Texas A&M head coach Steve Denton said. "We haven't had success against them in the previous early-season matches, but I think we have a better indoor team than we've had in the past. We've been working on individual things we saw over the weekend that needed improvement. We've also played indoors this week to get acclimated to the faster conditions. I know our guys are excited about the opportunity to play Texas. They are a very good team and we're going to have to play well. We will have a good chance, if our guys can play well against them."

Both teams have a total of six nationally-ranked singles players and a pair of ranked doubles tandems combined. A&M is paced by No. 32-ranked Jeff Dadamo (Tampa, Fla.) and top returning player in two-time All-American Austin Krajicek (Brandon, Fla.) who claimed one of his biggest career singles victories over the weekend against 2009 Big 12 Conference Player of the Year Oleksandr Nedovyesov of Oklahoma State in straight sets on Jan. 31.

Krajicek and Dadamo are also ranked No. 18 nationally in doubles, while Texas' top duo Dimitar Kutrovsky and Josh Zavala are ranked No. 22. Kutrovsky and UT teammate Ed Corrie rank among the top 10 singles players in the nation at No. 5 and No. 9 respectively. Zavala is No. 38 followed by Daniel Whitehead (No. 85) and Vasko Mladenov (No. 104).

The Aggies and Longhorns will meet each other again in both team's regular-season finale which will earn the winner a full point toward the State Farm Lone Star Showdown standings on April 17 at 4 p.m. (CT) in Austin, Texas.

A&M will close out the weekend with a road trip to No. 31 Tulsa (6-2) on Sunday, Feb. 7 in Tulsa, Okla. The non-conference dual match will be played at 1 p.m. (CT) at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center.

"It's always a very emotional match when you play Texas," Denton said. "Two years ago, we didn't handle the same weekend very well. We played Texas on a Friday night and then Tulsa handed it to us on Sunday. Hopefully, our players learned from that experience. For those who have been here in the past, I hope we can go up there (to Tulsa) and be ready to play. Playing back-to-back matches with one day's rest is tough, but right now, our main focus is Texas. We'll worry about Sunday's match after Friday's match."

Maroon Out The Met...Aggie Tennis fans who will be attending or traveling to Houston for the Texas Cup are encouraged to wear Maroon to the match.

Follow The Aggies...Periodic live updates from the Texas Cup match can be followed via the Aggie Men's Tennis Twitter account at: http://twitter.com/aggietennis1. Doubles scores will be tweeted after the conclusion of doubles play and singles scores after the conclusion of all first sets.