Four members of the Texas A&M men’s and women’s tennis teams will open their fall schedule Friday with a trip to San Diego, Calif., to compete in co-ed team action that will conclude with the champion being crowned Sunday afternoon.
The fall season consists of individual competition by the Aggie netters in which no team scores are compiled and only individual national rankings are affected.
The only exception to the individual competitions of the fall semester takes place this weekend when the Aggies will send a four-person mixed-combination of men and women to San Diego to compete in the World Team Tennis Championships against other schools from around the country in which the combined scores will determine a team champion.
The Aggies will be joining the co-hosts, the University of San Diego and San Diego State University as well as 13 other teams, including the University of Arizona, Oklahoma State University, Southern Methodist University, and Texas Christian University and the University of South Alabama, last year’s champion. Texas A&M won the inaugural tournament in 1999.
Representing the Aggies will be sophomore Jessica Roland and senior Marjorie Terburgh from the women’s team and junior Ryan Newport and Alex Barragan from the men’s squad.
Each team match will consist of five sets. There will be one set each of men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles. One point is awarded for each set won, and the team with the most points will advance to the next round of competition.
“This is one of our three national championship competitions and the only one that is co-ed,” said A&M men’s tennis coach Tim Cass. “It’s a neat event that we won two years ago, so we’re really putting the pressure on the players, having not won it last year, to bring the trophy back this weekend.”
The women’s first scheduled competition was to be held September 14-16 in Fayetteville, Ark., but was canceled by the University of Arkansas after the declaration by President Bush of a National Day of Prayer following the tragedies in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. They will compete next in Los Angeles, Calif., from October 6-14 at the ITA All-American Championships.
The men’s team was also scheduled to participate in the Texas Intercollegiate being hosted by Baylor University this weekend in Waco, but the Aggies withdrew earlier this week. Their next competition will be in San Antonio when they participate in the UTSA Fall Classic October 5-7.