Hi UT Tennis Fan,
Happy New Year! Our team is back on campus, and we started training together a few days ago. I have been very happy to see that everyone came back in good health, in good shape, and in good tennis form. We are excited that two new players are joining us as freshmen this semester, Sebastian Eriksson (Sweden) and Oliver Ojakaar (Estonia). They are both outstanding players, and great fits with our culture.
Although we lost 6 seniors to graduation and 1 to professional tennis from last year's team, we have been ranked the #1 ranked team in the country in the preseason poll. This is now the 4th season out of the last 7 that we have risen to the top spot in the rankings. While we recognize that it is the journey and where we finish that are more important than where we start, it is still nice recognition for the program.
Our dual match season opens this weekend with matches against Lamar (1 pm on Saturday) and Abilene Christian (11 am on Sunday). Although we have had a cold snap the last few days, the weather should be nice this weekend, and we expect both matches to be outside at the Texas Tennis Center. Our 3rd match of the season will be on Wednesday, January 15 at 4pm against UTRGV. All matches will be streamed live, and you can find the links here.
In news of our recent graduates, Eliot Spizzirri won his first tournament of 2025, picking up the doubles title at the $150k Challenger in Canberra, Australia. This week he picked up a singles win over #205 Alexander Blockx in the first round of The Australian Open qualifying. Micah Braswell also picked up a good win yesterday at a Challenger in Portugal, taking out #243 Beibit Zhukayev. Cleeve Harper is in the 2nd round of doubles in Portugal, and progressing fast through the doubles rankings.
Hope to see you at the courts this weekend. Hook'em!
Sincerely,
Bruce Berque