BEAUMONT – The University of Texas-Pan American Broncs men's tennis team is set to face the University of Southern Mississippi in a neutral site match on Saturday at the Thompson Family Tennis Center, located on the campus of Lamar University.
 
This is the third of 10 straight matches away from the Orville Cox Tennis Center.
 
Last Time Out
 The Broncs fell to the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders 1-6 on Wednesday at the Thomas J. Henry Tennis Center.
 
The Islanders (4-3) jumped out to the early advantage as they took the doubles point. After dropping the doubles match on court three, the Broncs battled on court two as the team of Miguel Alvarez-Hevia and Hector Ramirez kept it close with Kevin Bettendroffer and Guillaume Rauseo before falling 4-6.
 
In singles, the Islanders won on five of the six courts to clinch the match but the Broncs (2-4) got on the board with a win on court three. Freshman Koby Jansen dropped his first set to Ricardo Mayagoitia 4-6 but bounced back with a 6-4 win in the second set. Jansen then clinched the win with a 10-2 win in the tiebreaker.
 
Athlete of the Week
Freshman Koby Jansen earned Western Athletic Conference men's Tennis Athlete of the Week honors.
 
Jansen recorded the lone points for the Broncs against the Islanders after beating Ricardo Mayagoitia 4-6, 6-4, 10-2 in the No. 3 singles position. It was Jansen's second straight victory as he now has a 4-2 dual match singles record and a 10-5 overall record.
 
Scouting the Golden Eagles
The Golden Eagles enter the weekend with a 5-3 record after having their last match against South Alabama cancelled because of rain. They will play the Lamar Cardinals on Friday.
The Golden Eagles were last on the court on February 16 when they defeated Incarnate Word 5-2. They are also 1-1 in neutral site matches.
 
Mikhail Esipov leads the way for the Golden Eagles with a 4-1 dual match singles record. Esipov has played most of his matches at the No. 6 position as he hold a 2-1 record in that spot but is also 1-0 in both the No. 3 and 4 positions.
 
The Golden Eagles have three others with three victories on the season in Alex Doleac, Rakshit Rishi and Tarun Surat. Doleac is 3-2 on the season while playing all of his matches at the No. 4 position. Rishi is 3-1 on the season while picking up wins at the No. 4, 5 and 6 positions while Surat is 3-4 while playing all his matches at the No. 1 position.
 
In doubles, the duo of Chao-Yu Huang and Wen-Po Tseng are 4-3 while playing all of their matches at the No. 1 doubles spot. Brad Marriott is 6-0 doubles while pairing with Esipov, Doleac and Daniel Merker. They have played all their matches at the No. 3 spot.
 
The Series
The Broncs are looking for their first win against the Golden Eagles, as they are 0-2 all-time against them in a series that dates back to 1996.
 
The last time these two teams played it was the Golden Eagles that came away with the 6-1 victory on March 16, 1999.
 
Globetrotters
The Broncs have seven student-athletes representing six countries including, Argentina, Australia, Croatia, Mexico, Spain and Trinidad and Tobago.
 
Next Up
The Broncs are back in action on Sunday when they face the Lamar Cardinals at 10 a.m. at the Thompson Family Tennis Center.   

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