Kentucky Men’s Tennis Set to Face Virginia Tech in NCAA First Round
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Kentucky men’s tennis team is headed to Columbus, Ohio for its 28th NCAA Tournament appearance. UK will take on Virginia Tech on Friday, May 11 at 10 a.m. at the Varsity Tennis Center on the campus of Ohio State University for the first round of the 64 team event.
The winner of UK’s match with VT will take on the winner of three-seeded Ohio State and East Tennessee State on Saturday, May 12 at noon. Admission is free all weekend. OSU and ETSU will play their first round match on Friday at 1 p.m.
Live scoring all weekend can be found on the Ohio State Men’s Tennis Facebook page here. There will be no live video for any match this weekend.
Kentucky is ranked No. 26 in the latest Oracle ITA rankings, while VT sits at No. 35. Ohio State is No. 3 while ETSU is unranked.
The Wildcats have now reached the NCAA Tournament in five of the last six seasons under head coach Cedric Kauffmann. Last season in the tournament, UK earned a win over Georgia State, 4-0, before falling to top-seeded Wake Forest, 4-2, in the second round.
Last week, the Southeastern Conference announced their All-SEC teams, and Will Bushamuka, Ryo Matsumura and Trey Yates all made the list. Bushamuka and Matsumura made the first team, while Yates appeared on the second team.
Kentucky finished the season 14-11 overall and 7-5 in Southeastern Conference play. UK was eliminated in the second round of the SEC Tournament by Alabama, 4-1. UK has two ranked singles players, No. 8 Ryo Matsumura and No. 50 Will Bushmauka. Matsumura is 17-4 this season with nine wins over nationally ranked opponents while Bushamuka is 10-7 with four ranked wins. The duo of Cesar Bourgois and Gus Benson sits at No. 18 in the doubles rankings with a 9-6 record on the top court.
Matsumura and Bushamuka were also selected for the NCAA Singles Tournament, which will take place after the NCAA Team Tournament. Matsumura is the No. 8 seed in the event. In doubles, the duo Benson and Bourgois qualified for the doubles event.
Virginia Tech earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. VT went 17-7 and 7-5 in Atlantic Coast Conference play this season, and fell in the first round of the ACC Tournament to Georgia Tech. Mitch Harper is the only ranked Hokie at No. 29 in the nation. Harper is 14-5 in dual play this season and he has played his entire season on the No. 1 court. Harper will compete in the NCAA Singles Tournament as well.
Host Ohio State is 29-2 this season and won the Big Ten regular season and tournament. OSU has eight top-15 wins and has five players ranked in the latest Oracle ITA rankings. No. 4 Mikael Torpegaared is the highest ranked Buckeye at No. 5 in the nation. Earlier this year, UK faced Ohio State in Lexington and fell 4-2. Ryo Matsumura took down then ranked No. 3 Torpegaard, 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 6-4 in that match. Torpegaard and JJ Wolf will represent the Buckeyes in the NCAA Singles Tournament.
East Tennessee State made the tournament after taking down Furman, 4-2, in the Southern Conference Tournament. ETSU has won 12 straight conference regular season titles, including this season. The Bucs finished 16-7 and a perfect 7-0 in conference play. ETSU only gave up two points in the SoCon Tournament.
For more information on the Kentucky men’s tennis team, follow @UKMensTennis on Twitter or Kentucky Men’s Tennis Team on Facebook.
