SAN ANTONIO — The UTSA men’s tennis team will open its 2014 fall slate this weekend at the Marco & Co. Catering Islanders Open. The three-day tournament will open on Friday at the H-E-B Tennis Center in Corpus Christi.
Matches are scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. on Friday and the tournament will run all day Saturday with finals at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
The Roadrunners will compete in singles and doubles matches against players from Incarnate Word, Lamar, Texas-Pan American, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and UT Arlington. The event is sanctioned by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) and results count toward individual ranking points in the ITA singles and doubles ranking system.
Fifth-year head coach Jeff Kader welcomes back nine letterwinners from last year’s squad. Headlining the list of returnees is the senior all-conference duo of Joel Rubio and Tomas Stillman. Stillman, from Harlingen, was named 2014 Conference USA Newcomer of the Year and he garnered second-team All-Conference USA accolades in singles after posting a 21-2 record.
The transfer from Toledo combined with Rubio, a native of Arnedo, Spain, for a 15-7 mark and second-team all-league honors in doubles. The tandem debuted at No. 16 in the ITA National Rankings, the highest ranking in program history, and remained nationally ranked throughout most of the spring season.
Diogo Casa, a junior from Pelotas, Brazil, and Yannick Junger, a senior all-conference performer from Stuttgart, Germany, also return. The duo combined for a run to the ITA All-American Championships Main Doubles Draw last fall.
Juniors Eric Buchalter, David Kelleher and Matt Mussenden and sophomores Fabian Brand and Harley Pearson also are back to join forces with newcomers Christian Carrillo, a freshman from Dallas, Mark Ginting, a freshman from Indonesia by way of New Braunfels High School, Tito Moreiras, a sophomore transfer from Texas A&M, and Jacob Rother, a junior transfer from Indiana.