SAN ANTONIO – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's (UTRGV) men's tennis team is taking on the UTSA Roadrunners Saturday at 11 a.m. at the UTSA Tennis Center. 
 
The Vaqueros (0-2, 0-0 Southland Conference) are 23-39 all-time against the Roadrunners (0-1, 0-0 American Athletic Conference). UTSA has won 10 straight in the head-to-head series. UTRGV's last win over UTSA came in 2016 courtesy of a 4-2 neutral site match in Corpus Christi. 
 
These teams faced off last spring in Edinburg and UTSA took home a 7-0 win. The last match in San Antonio was in 2023, won 6-1 by the Roadrunners. Both teams challenged themselves during the first week of the season. The Vaqueros battled No. 1 Texas before heading to Rice for the opening week, while the Roadrunners started their season at No. 14 Texas A&M. 
 
"It's always great to compete against schools like Texas and Rice. We got to see how we compared to very solid teams," head coach Nathan Robinson said. "We saw Sam compete very, very well in both matches. Loic looked good against Rice, and Paolo looked good in a couple sets, too. We also got to run out a bunch of doubles teams. We're really talented in doubles so we're still sifting through what those teams might look like. For us, it was a good learning weekend for what this group might look like and what we can expect." 
 
Although the score lines didn't go their way, Robinson was pleased to see the Vaqueros stick to their game styles and find success when the execution was high. This week the team has emphasized doubles play and making tougher shots in singles. They learned a lot from two tough matches to start the year and are eager to take their swings in San Antonio.  
 
"UTSA is going to be a tough team, similar to Rice, so we're going to have to play a lot better than we did last week. But we're improving every day and we're ready for the challenge. Hopefully this week we can see some improvement," redshirt junior and team captain Sam Whitehead said. 

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