PROVO -- After exciting wins last week over San Francisco and No. 29 Boise State, the No. 23 BYU men’s tennis team heads to Corpus Christi, Texas for the HEB Tournament of Champions. No. 64 Middle Tennessee will be first up for the Cougars Friday.
A total of eight teams are participating in the two-day tournament including BYU and the Blue Raiders. Other teams playing are hosts Texas A&M Corpus Christi, DePaul, No. 18 Texas Tech, No. 64 Western Michigan, University of Louisiana, Lafayette and South Alabama.
BYU jumped 22 spots in the rankings this week to earn the No. 23 spot. The Cougars’ Evan Urbina was also named Mountain West Conference Men’s Tennis Player of the Week, his second honor of the season. BYU has now earned four player of the week awards, the most in one season since the Mountain West’s inception in 1999.
Middle Tennessee has struggled this spring, compiling a 2-9 record so far. The Blue Raiders do have one ranked player, No. 39 John Peers. Their last outing resulted in a 5-2 loss to No. 39 Vanderbilt. BYU and MSTU met last season at this same tournament where the Blue Raiders came away with a 4-1 win,
Friday afternoon the Cougars will play either DePaul or TAMUCC. The Blue Demons are 5-8 and dropped two matches over the weekend. BYU beat DePaul 4-2 at the HEB tournament last season and 6-0 at the Harvard Invitational earlier in the spring.
TAMUCC had a break from play last week but will return to the courts Friday morning to play DePaul. The Islanders are 4-5 on the season and defeated BYU 4-0 when the teams last met in 2007.
First serve between BYU and Middle Tennessee is set for 9 a.m. CT and the second match against DePaul or TAMUCC begins at 4 p.m. CT. Both matches will take place at the HEB Tennis Center.