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HOUSTON – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) men's tennis team opens up its dual match season on Sunday when they hit the road to face Rice University at 11 a.m. at the George R. Brown Tennis Center.
Last Time Out
UTRGV last competed at the ITA Regionals as they closed out the fall season.
Elliot Johnstone and
Yehonatan Kaufman finished runner up in doubles of the consolation draw. They defeated UT Arlington's Pedro Nuez and Mauricio del Rio to advance to the consolation finals before falling to Rice's Oscar Janglin and Eric Rutledge 3-8.
UTRGV opened the ITA Regionals with seven victories on the first day as
Koby Jansen, Dennis Boisseau and Zane Khors each advanced in the first round of the single main draw.
Khors picked up the 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Texas Tech's Justin Bloss while Jansen defeated Incarnate Word's Francisco Bendana 7-5, 6-3.
Khors also teamed with Michael Loyd in doubles to pick up a win in the round of 32 over Abilene Christian's Joshua Sheehy and Jonathan Sheehy before falling in the round of 16.
Janse and Boisseau picked up the 8-6 win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's William Mottet and Carlos Pedrosa to advance to the round of 16 before falling.
Scouting Rice
Rice will also be opening up their season against UTRGV before playing Prairie View A&M later at 4 p.m.
Rice brings back just two from last year's squad in Daniel Warren and Eric Rutledge, who went 23-8 overall in singles and 18-5 in dual match play.
The rest of the squad are incoming freshmen in Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, Jared Aiman, Jacob Eskeland, Conrad Russell, and Sumit Karkar.
Last year's team posted a 23-8 record while winning the Conference USA Championship and advancing to the NCAA Tournament, where they fell to Cornell.
The All-Time Series
UTRGV is 17-26 all-time against Rice in a series that dates back to 1960.
The last time UTRGV defeated Rice came back in 1979.
Last year both teams faced off in Houston where Rice picked up the 7-0 victory.
Globetrotters
UTRGV currently has nine student-athletes on the roster representing five different countries, including the France (Dennis Boisseau, Clément Sarradin), United States (Jake Davidson, Zane Kohrs, Michael Loyd), Australia (
Koby Jansen,
Elliot Johnstone), Israel (
Yehonatan Kaufman), and Argentina (Mateo Schmit).
Next Up
UTRGV will be back in action on January 20 when they travel to Lubbock to face New Mexico in a neutral site match before facing off against No. 24 Texas Tech on January 21.
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