After picking up their first win on the spring season Monday afternoon against Purdue (1-2), the Notre Dame Men’s tennis team (1-1) will travel to Fort Worth, Texas to take on Arizona (4-0) in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. The Irish enter in as the No. 29 team in the ITA rankings and the No. 2 seed in their bracket of four behind only the host team, TCU (1-0).
The Irish will look to carry their momentum from their win last Monday into their match Friday, as they will need to perform in this evenly projected match up. Notre Dame took the doubles point convincingly in its contest against Purdue, with the doubles team of sophomore Axel Nefve and junior Tristan McCormick taking their match by the score of 6-3 followed by the team of junior Richard Ciamarra and senior Matt Gamble winning by the score of 6-2. Despite the score line, Notre Dame would need to battle hard in singles, needing a pair of three-set matches to seal the victory with McCormick winning 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 and junior William Howells winning 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
The Irish will need their No. 1 singles player and No. 5-ranked ITA Richard Ciamarra to have a bounce-back performance against Arizona. After winning his first singles match of the season against Kentucky (3-0), Ciamarra dropped his match against Purdue senior Athell Bennett 6-7, 4-6. Arizona carries ITA-ranked singles players in their lineup, as well in junior Filip Malbasic and senior Alejandro Reguant.
Should Notre Dame win its match against Arizona, it will advance to face the winner of Florida Atlantic University (2-3) and TCU. Doubles play will begin at 11 a.m. at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center followed by singles immediately after.
