Anteaters Set to Begin Fall Season in San Diego

Friday, October 4

San Diego, Calif.

9:00 AM

UC Irvine

Aztec Fall Invitational

Anteaters Set to Begin Fall Season in San Diego

October 03, 2019 | Men's Tennis

IRVINE, Calif. - The UC Irvine men's tennis team kicks off the 2019-20 season this weekend at the Aztec Fall Invitational in San Diego, Oct. 4-6. It is the first of four fall tournaments for the Anteaters.

QUICK HITS
• UC Irvine returns six letterwinners from a 2018-19 squad that went 15-8.
• The 'Eaters made their fifth consecutive appearance in the Big West semifinals last year.
• Bruce Man-Son-Hing and Daniel Gealer are the Anteaters' only seniors on this year's 10-man roster.
• Head coach Mike Saunders is in his fifth season at the helm and has a 57-44 career record at UCI.
• This is the fifth year in a row the 'Eaters will compete in the Aztec Fall Invitational.
• In 2018, Mateusz Smolicki teamed up with recent graduate Luis Lopez to win the Red Flight doubles title.

AZTEC INVITATIONAL REWIND
Smolicki and Lopez went 3-0 to win their doubles flight at the 2018 Aztec Fall Invitational. They defeated Grand Canyon's duo of Lorenzo Fucile/Mathieu Rajanoah, 6-4, in the championship match. Daniel Gealer and Bruce Man-Son-Hing went 3-1 in the Black Flight, claiming runner-up honors after dropping a hard-fought 7-6 (6) decision in the final. Gealer also went 4-1 in singles, advancing to the championship match in the Warrior Flight.

2018-19 HIGHLIGHTS
Junior Mateusz Smolicki garnered 2019 All-Big West honorable mention recognition in both singles and doubles. He played primarily at the No. 3 singles position, finishing with 12 wins, seven of which came over his last 10 matches.

Senior Bruce Man-Son-Hing is a two-time all-conference doubles selection, earning first-team honors in 2018 and second-team accolades in 2019. He had 18 overall doubles wins and went 15-4 during the dual-match season last year.

Daniel Gealer is coming off a junior campaign in which he registered a team-high 20 overall singles wins (14-6 dual).

UC Irvine was named a 2018-19 ITA All-Academic Team, while leading the Big West with six individual Scholar-Athlete recipients. Returners Daniel Gealer, Antoine Barthe and Aaron Bailey were part of that group.

MEET THE NEWCOMERS
UC Irvine welcomes four newcomers with two freshmen and two transfers. Jeremy Merville joins the Anteaters after spending two years at Nevada. As a freshman in 2017-18, he entered the Wolf Pack's all-time top-10 in both singles (22) and doubles (14) victories.

Mark Peneff played one year at Glendale Community College where he was the Western State Conference singles champion and doubles runner-up.

Freshmen Ali Amiri and Matthew Sah are both four-star recruits from Southern California. Sah, a San Diego native, was a CIF state champion in doubles, while Amiri, who is a local product out of Irvine, competed in the 2019 USTA Boys' 18 National Championships.

INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR
For the sixth year in a row, the Anteaters will have multiple international players. Juniors Antoine Barthe and Jeremy Merville are natives of France, while classmate Mateusz Smolicki hails from Poland.

UP NEXT
UC Irvine competes in three more preseason tournaments, the first being at the ITA Southwest Regional in Malibu, Calif., Oct. 17-20. The 'Eaters then travel to Los Angeles to compete in the So Cal Intercollegiate Championships and the LMU Invitational, Nov. 7-10.