The Texas A&M men’s and women’s tennis teams will begin their campaigns for a NCAA title this weekend in College Station.
The SEC tournament champion men’s team (21-4) will enter the tournament as the No. 6 overall seed and will host the first two rounds of the tournament. A&M’s first opponent is Eastern Kentucky (18-7), which earned an automatic tournament bid when it was named champions of the Ohio Valley Conference.
EKU and A&M will play their first round match at 2 p.m. Friday at the Mitchell Tennis Center.
This season marks the 22nd consecutive season that the Aggies have reached the NCAA tournament. Last year, A&M was named as the No. 8 seed and hosted the first two rounds. Unfortunately, after defeating Alcorn State (4-0) the Aggies fell to No. 17 Cal in just the second round of play.
Texas A&M will enter the tournament with the No. 7 doubles duo in the nation in juniors Harrison Adams and Shane Vinsant. Individually, the Aggies have five players ranked in singles competition — No. 48 Jeremy Efferding, No. 71 Vinsant, No. 72 Adams, No. 81 AJ Catanzariti and No. 82 Arthur Rinderknech. Catanzariti and Rinderknech were also named to the SEC All-Freshman team. Head coach Steve Denton now holds the title of back-to-back SEC Coach of the Year.
Along the way, the Aggies could potentially meet No. 11 Ohio State for a rematch in the round of 16. Other notable teams that will be standing in the way of A&M will be No. 3 Virginia, No. 7 USC and No. 2 Baylor. Among the top-16 seeds are six A&M opponents from this season, against which the Aggies went 4-4.
The Texas A&M women’s team (15-5) is seeded No. 10 overall in the tournament and will face Alcorn State (11-12), which was the automatic qualifier from the SWAC, in the first round of play. The women also will be a host team for the first two rounds of the tournament and will commence play on at noon Saturday.
To move out of their region, the Aggies will have to potentially knock off No. 7 UCLA and No. 2 North Carolina.
The Aggies’ first round match will mark the first time they have played since they fell to No. 24 LSU, 4-3 in the SEC Tournament on April 17th.
The winners of the first round will advance to Sunday in the match that will decide who is invited to Waco.
