'Eaters Host Red Raiders, Travel to Spring Classic in San Diego

UPCOMING MATCHES

Home matches in BOLD
^ - Neutral site (San Diego, Calif.)

Mon. Mar. 12 - 1:00 PM - Texas Tech at UCI
Thurs. Mar. 15 - 10:00 AM - UCI vs. Harvard^
Fri. Mar. 16 - TBA - UCI vs. Pacific/SDSU^
Sat. Mar. 17 - TBA - UCI vs. TBA^

The Anteaters will get right back into the mix with another four-match week against a bevy of ranked competition.

DOUBLE TROUBLE: UCI has had an adventure figuring out its doubles pairings. It kept the same three duos through the first eight matches until Coach Kronemann flipped the script pu in Oregon.

The 'Eaters have had 11 different doubles pairs now in 2012. The only real headway from the new pairs has come from sophomore Ryan Cheung (Irvine / University HS) and Jacob Jung (Upland / Options for Youth HS) who won against Rice and went to a tiebreaker against Santa Clara.

Doubles overall is 9-22. No. 2s have had the most success with four of the team's nine doubles wins.

The 'Eaters did win two of three doubles matches in their one conference match.

TEXAS TECH RED RAIDERS: The Red Raiders are 6-4 so far in 2012 and ranked 23rd. They have an impressed slate of wins over Nos. 44 TCU, 31 Michigan, and 25 San Diego while still falling to No. 17 Texas, No. 21 Tennessee, and No. 15 Mississippi State.

The Red Raiders host No. 30 Louisville before traveling to UCI to start their California road trip.

Gonzalo Escobar paces Texas Tech as the No. 23-ranked player in the nation. Alongside are Raony Carvalho and Rafael Garcia. In singles, they have done well at Nos. 2 and 3, and have also been impressive in doubles recently defeating the 20th-ranked duo.

HARVARD CRIMSON: The Crimson are ranked 26th in the nation with a record of 10-1. They started the season ranked 70th and jumped one week from 52nd to 27th. They recently took three at the ECAC tennis tournament.

Other big wins this year have come against No. 55 Denver, No. 50 Virginia Tech, No. 49 Vanderbilt, and No. 39 Drake with Harvard's one loss coming to No. 19 Indiana.

Jonathan Pearlman has held down the No. 1 slot all year, but has a record of just 3-5. Henry Steer and Alex Steinroeder have been big in the No. 2 and 3 slots, but the big noise has come from Christo Schultz and Shaun Chaudhuri who are a combined 19-0 this spring.

Doubles have belonged to Harvard going a combined 16-6 in dual matches. Casey MacMaster and Alistair Felton, who primary play doubles, have done just that at 6-3 in the No. 1 slot.

The 'Eaters and Crimson last matched up in 2009 with UCI taking the victory, 4-3, at Anteater Tennis Stadium.

LOOKING TOWARD THE WEEKEND: The San Diego Hilton Mission Valley Classic has a total of four ranked squads in the field including the two hosts and UCI's first opponent, Harvard, San Diego and San Diego State, ranked 31st and 47th, respectively. The other ranked school is Purdue who is ranked 54th.

The 'Eaters will match up in game two with either Pacific or San Diego State depending the result of that match and the result of UCI's match with Harvard.

On the bottom half of the bracket, Purdue is matched up with Oklahoma State while San Diego will play Marquette.

The unranked schools come in with records of 6-7 (Marquette), 4-5 (Oklahoma State), and 4-5 (Pacific). Harvard and UCI will be a matchup with 10-1 and 1-10 teams.

The ranked schools have almost exclusively played ranked schools, however, for the first round, every ranked school will matchup with an unranked school.

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