SAN ANTONIO – The UTSA men’s tennis team (4-5) head east to Florida, taking on back-to-back Sunshine State foes this weekend with Miami [FL] (6-2) and Florida Atlantic on the road slate. Having already played nine matches away from home to start the season, the Roadrunners will face the Hurricanes on Friday in Coral Gables, before heading up I-95 to meet the Owls in Boca Raton on Sunday morning.
Following this Week’s Matches
UTSA at Miami is set for 3 p.m. CST on Friday, Feb. 23 at Neil Schiff Tennis Center in Coral Gables. The match will be streamed live on Miami’s Playsight with UM Athletics also providing live results.
UTSA at Florida Atlantic is scheduled to be played at 10 a.m. CST on Sunday, Feb. 25 at the Kimberly V. Strauss Tennis Center in Boca Raton. There will be no live stream of the match, but FAU Athletics will provide live results.
Last Time Out
The Roadrunners split the road trip to Wichita with a 5-2 loss to streaking New Mexico, but closed out the weekend with a 4-2 besting of host Wichita State. Against the Shockers, UTSA captured the doubles point and rallied from a 2-1 deficit in singles via three straight wins from Garrett Skelly, Miguel Alonso and Danijal Muminovic to the victory.
So far this season, Alonso, a Veracruz, Mexico junior, is leading the Roadrunners with a 6-0 record in singles. A junior out of Tuzla, Bosnia, Muminovic is 5-3. On the doubles courts, Alan Magadan and Tomás Pinho are a team-high 5-3 on court No. 1 this season and are in their second week appearing in the ITA rankings, coming in this week at No. 29 nationally.
On the Slate this Week
The Miami Hurricanes went 15-10 last year and ranked No. 50, opening the weekend at 6-2 this season under eighth-year head coach Aljosa Piric. The Hurricanes come in at No. 63 in the latest expanded ITA team rankings. The tandem of Adrien Burdet and Vladislav Melnic rank at 27th in the ITA rankings, just ahead of UTSA’s pair.
The Florida Atlantic Owls were 58th last season at 13-11 and presented two tough victories for the Roadrunners when both were still Conference USA members in 2023. The Owls enter the weekend at 8-3 and are 4-1 at home in the 11th season under Director of Tennis Ricardo Gonzalez, checking in at No. 41 in the latest ITA rankings. Grad Juan Martin Jalif leads the Owls with a 7-1 record this spring, largely on court four. Fellow grad Alberto Colas is also at 7-2, while Mark Havlicek and Jiri Jenicek are both 6-4 – Jenicek accounted for a 4-1 record in the fall and takes up court two for FAU.
Series Against the Opposition
The Roadrunners and Hurricanes are squaring off for the first time in program history. Meanwhile, UTSA is playing Florida Atlantic for the seventh time – the Owls holding a 4-2 advantage and the Roadrunners capturing both wins in 2023, first during the regular season, 4-2, then in the Conference USA Championships, with UTSA securing the 4-3 victory to move on to the title match.
Up Next
With this weekend hemming up an 11-match road stretch to open the season, UTSA will finally take court at home at the UTSA Tennis Center next week, hosting Utah State in the home opener on March 1, then closing out the week hosting UT Arlington on Sunday, March 3.
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