The UL Men's Tennis team will travel to Big 12 member Texas Tech on Sunday at 10 AM to play the Red Raiders.
Texas Tech is 0-1 after losing to #6 ranked Tennessee 0-7 yesterday and faces the University of Charlotte today. Tech who we defeated last year but made the NCAA tournament returns 4 players that we faced last year, but only 3 of which played vs Tennessee yesterday. They return Reed Collier who played #3 vs us last year losing to Orio Fillat Gimenez, they return Franco Ribero who played #5 vs us and defeated Vasil Dimitrov and they return Dimitios Azoidis who played #6 vs us and lost to Calin Postea, they also return Isaac Arevalo who played #1 vs us and had an unfinished match vs Karlo Kajin in which Kajin lost the first set 6-1, but won the 2nd 6-4. The Cajuns return everyone from last years team that went 17-6, but lost their last 3 matches after #1 Karlo Kajin went down for the rest of the season. I have no inside knowledge but unless one of the newcomers has overtaken some of the veterans or if we have any lingering injuries my assumption is our lineup will look like this:
#1 Alejandro Sanchez Gonzales
#2 Karlo Kajin
#3 Orliel Fillat Gimenez
#4 Calin Postea
#5 Kacper Dworak
#6 Vasil Dimitrov
I am intrigued to see if Alejo Ferrer Chueca moves into the starting lineup as he was the fill in for the team when we lost Kajin. I am also interested in Freshman William Ribero. I think we are a much deeper team than the team we had last year which is good for us. We need to get the season going this year with a nice win over Texas Tech, because the schedule is brutal this year.
The women on the other hand start off vs Mississippi State, they are coming off a 7-12 season only return 4 players from last years team, the other 4 players on the roster are true freshman. The good news is that 3 of the 4 returning players Lucie Raquin, Carla Urchoeguia and Momoko Yoshimura are the 3 winningest players from the team last year, Raquin went 7-6, Urchoeguia went 9-4 and Uoshimura went 8-5, while Angel Santiago went 4-11, the big loss was Tanisha Kashyan who went 6-1 last year for the Cajuns. The women's schedule is not nearly as brutal as the men but do have some tough matches in out of conference play including the beforementioned Moo State, Rice, Houston and Tulane.
Geaux Cajuns!!!!