ARLINGTON – The final weekend of the regular season is here for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's (UTRGV) men's tennis team and the Vaqueros have two big Western Athletic Conference (WAC) contests on deck.
The Vaqueros (8-14, 0-2 WAC) will face the UT Arlington Mavericks (8-7, 2-0 WAC) at 2 p.m. Friday at the UTA Tennis Center. They'll close the season with a Sunday match at Abilene Christian (9-11, 1-2 WAC) at 11 a.m. at the Eager Tennis Pavilion.
These final two matches will be very important to seeding for the upcoming WAC Tennis Tournament, being hosted by UTRGV at the HEB Tennis Center at Pendleton Park in Harlingen. All five men's teams advance to the tournament, and the top three seeds will receive automatic byes to the semifinal round. The No.4 and No. 5 seeds will play Thursday in a quarterfinal match.
The Vaqueros head into this weekend in the fifth spot in the conference standings, one match behind ACU and Seattle U. A pair of wins could push them straight into the semis.
UTRGV is 7-24 all-time against UT Arlington in a series dating back to 1983. These teams faced off twice in 2023, once in the regular season with UTA winning 6-1 at home, and in the semis of the conference tournament with UTA winning 5-0 in Arlington.
The Vaqueros are 5-10 all-time against ACU. They're facing the Wildcats in Abilene for the first time since 2020. In last year's match, the teams battled in a tight match won 5-2 by the Wildcats.
A trio of Vaqueros will put their unblemished conference records on the line over the weekend. Senior captain
Emilien Burnel has yet to drop a WAC match in the No. 1 singles or doubles spot, holding down the top doubles court with freshman
Ivo Isqueiro. Freshman
Will Roberts has come along in the second half of the season, winning six of his last eight matches to hold a 2-0 mark in singles at No. 6.
With two or one conference matches left to play, the WAC men's tennis standings have UT Arlington unbeaten on top, Grand Canyon sitting second at 2-1, Abilene Christian and Seattle U (1-1) in the three and four spots, and UTRGV at the back. Seeding will be sorted out by Sunday evening.
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