Kentucky Heads to Oklahoma State for ITA Kickoff Weekend

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STILLWATER, Okla. – The No. 14 Kentucky men’s tennis team
will travel to the Intercollegiate Tennis Assocation Kickoff Weekend, starting
Friday at 4:30 p.m. ET. Kentucky will face Tulsa (4-2) in the first round of
what is essentially the ITA National Indoor Team national championships.

The hosts, No. 13 Oklahoma State, will play No. 22 Columbia
in the first match at 11 a.m. The winner of the two contests will play on
Saturday at 6:30, while the consolation match will take place at 3:30 p.m. the
same day.

Schools earned the right to host in order of their year-end
2016 ITA team rankings. Three visiting schools travel to each host site to earn
a spot in the ‘Sweet 16.’ The National Indoors Sweet 16 are set for Feb. 16-19
in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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The Wildcats head into the ITA Kickoff with an unblemished
4-0 record, including wins over No. 25 Duke and ACC member Notre Dame. For his
performance against the Blue Devils and Fighting Irish, sophomore Ryo Matsumura
was awarded SEC Player of the Week. Matsumura went 2-0 in singles and 2-0 in
doubles last weekend, including a win over No. 27 Josh Hager of Notre Dame.

Tulsa comes to the ITA Kickoff at 4-2, including a massive
4-3 win over No. 7 Texas last Friday. The Golden Hurricane have faced one other
ranked opponent, No. 19 Arkansas, and fell, 4-3. No. 46 Or Ram Harel has the
biggest Golden Hurricane win of the season when he defeated No. 6 Christian
Sigsgaard, 7-6 (2). 6-2.

The host Sooners are 2-0 and return an All-American doubles
duo of Julian Cash and Arjun Kadhe, who won 34 matches as a tandem last year.
The duo is ranked No. 5 in the nation, while Cash also holds the No. 41 ranking
individually. No. 30 Lukas Finzelberg is the other ranked individual for OSU.
The Sooners wins this season come over Texas-Rio Grande Valley at 6-1 and Oral
Roberts, 7-0.

The ITA Kickoff will serve as the dual season opener for No.
22 Columbia. The Lions have played once this season, the MLK Invitational at
Georgia Tech, where the Lions won 12 of 25 singles matches and 8 of 11 doubles
matches against the Yellow Jackets, No. 5 Georgia and No. 17 Illinois. Columbia
is represented in the individual rankings by No. 40 Victor Pham and No. 48
Shawn Hadavi. The Lions have three ranked duos of No. 8 Richard Pham and Victor
Pham, No. 34 Shawn Hadavi and Jackie Tang and No. 52 Shawn Hadavi and Richard
Pham.

Live scores will be kept online at okstate.statbroadcast.com and a
live stream of the match will be shown on FloTennis ($).

For more
information on the Kentucky men’s tennis team, follow @UKMensTennis on
Twitter or Kentucky Men’s Tennis Team on
Facebook.