FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. ? The University of Kentucky men?s tennis team travels to the University of Arkansas for the Southeastern Conference Championships this weekend. The No. 43 Wildcats will battle the No. 30 Tigers of Auburn at the Billingsley Tennis Center in Fayetteville, Ark. at 11:30 a.m. ET Thursday.
Kentucky (11-14 overall, 3-8 SEC), the tournament?s 10th seed, wrapped up its regular season at home last weekend against No. 31 Vanderbilt. The Cats lost a close match 4-3 to the Commodores. The Cats earned points in doubles, at No. 1 singles with junior Bruno Agostinelli and at No.5 singles with junior Shane Collins. Agostinelli is ranked No. 26 nationally in singles and No. 48 in doubles with freshman partner Brad Cox.
Auburn (10-11, 4-7) is seeded seventh and is coming off of a loss at No. 19 Alabama 4-3. The Tigers earned points at singles positions two, four and five. Auburn is led in singles by No. 35 Alexey Tsyrenov and No. 80 Tim Puetz.
Earlier this year, the Wildcats beat the Tigers 4-3 in Lexington inside the Boone Tennis Center. Freshman Alberto Gonzalez clinched the deciding point for UK at the No. 5 singles slot with a three-set victory. Agostinelli defeated Tsyrenov at No. 1 singles and senior captain Marcus Sundh won a three-set match at the No. 3 spot after the Cats took the doubles point winning two out of three matches.
A deciding factor for the Cats this season has been the doubles point. When the Cats win at least two out of three doubles contests they are 7-2 on the season. However, one of those losses was last week against Vanderbilt.
At last year?s Championships the teams had the same seeds as Auburn defeated UK 4-0 to advance to the quarterfinals. And also like last year, the winner of this year?s rematch will advance to face the No. 2 seed Ole Miss Rebels in the quarterfinals.
Should Kentucky advance, opening serve against the Rebels is slated for 11:30 a.m. Friday at Billingsley.
Live stats and a full recap of the match will be available on UKathletics.com.