The 27th-ranked Baylor men's tennis team earned its 21st straight NCAA appearance, the NCAA announced online Tuesday afternoon. The Bears will head to College Station, Texas, along with fifth-seeded Texas A&M, Arizona State and Lamar for NCAA First and Second Round action on May 11-12.
The action in College Station gets underway on Friday, May 11, as the second-seeded Bears will take on third-seeded and No. 36 Arizona State (14-10) in first round action at 10 a.m. CT, followed by the No. 5 overall seed and top-seeded Texas A&M (22-5) and No. 4 seed Lamar (10-13) meeting at 1 p.m. The winners of those two matches will then play on Saturday, May 12, at 1 p.m. for a trip to the Round of 16.
The Bears will hit the road for only the eighth time in program history and first time ever to College Station for the tournament’s opening rounds.
“You can’t take this for granted,” head coach Matt Knoll said. “We’re in and we’re excited. It’s going to be fun to play. I know our guys are pumped up. We got ourselves a very tough draw. Arizona State has a very good team. We’re excited to play them. We’re going to have our hands full with them.”
BU is currently 20-9 on the season and ranked No. 27 in the latest Oracle/ITA team rankings.
Most recently, Baylor advanced to the Big 12 Championship match with ranked wins over No. 17 Oklahoma State and No. 7 TCU in Austin. After going 2-1 last weekend, five Bears were named to the Big 12 All-Tournament Team with Johannes Schretter (No. 1 singles), Sven Lah and Roy Smith (No. 2 doubles) and Will Little and Constantin Frantzen (No. 3 doubles) earning recognition.
Texas A&M is one of 16-host sites around the country with the winner of each advancing to the final site of the NCAA Tennis Championships at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex in Winston-Salem, N.C. Team competition in Winston-Salem will be May 17-22, while the singles and doubles championship will take place May 23-28. Selections for those tournaments will be announced on Wednesday.
Baylor is 55-19 in NCAA Championship play all-time.
