Feb. 7, 2012
LEXINGTON, Ky. – After defeating two top-25 ranked foes en route to posting the best start to a season in the 30-year tenure of head coach Dennis Emery, the University of Kentucky men’s tennis team has moved up to No. 6 in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association team rankings, the association announced Tuesday.
The ranking ties the highest for the Kentucky program since it moved to No. 6 in the rankings on March 9, 2010. UK earned that ranking with four wins over top-16 ranked teams, including its historic win over No. 2 Virginia. Before the 2010 season, UK had not earned a top-six rankings since the 2002 campaign.
Kentucky (8-0) is off to its best start under Emery, who took over as head coach of the Wildcats’ program in 1983. Match-by-match records prior to the 1983 season are incomplete.
The Wildcats recently completed a 6-0 home stand where they earned wins over No. 12 Pepperdine, No. 22 Tulsa and No. 29 Indiana. The wins over Pepperdine and Tulsa marked UK’s 20th and 21st win over a top-25 team since the 2009 season.
The win against Tulsa sealed Kentucky’s ticket to the ITA National Indoors Team Championships on Feb. 17-19 in Charlottesville, Va. The Wildcats have been to the national team indoor event the past two seasons, having successful runs both years. Including this season, UK has advanced to the last three rounds of 16 in the indoor team championships, on top of appearances in the outdoor round of 16 in 2010 and 2011.
UK is led this season by its senior co-captains Eric Quigley and Alex Musialek. Quigley, who is ranked fifth in the nation in singles, is the all-time winningest singles player in school history, while Musialek has 95 career singles wins and is on pace to become only the 14th player to earn 100 singles wins in a career. Musialek is ranked 13th in the nation in singles.
Along with Quigley and Musialek, Kentucky has a total of six singles players ranked in the nation, including junior No. 36 Anthony Rossi and sophomores No. 85 Panav Jha, No. 95 Tom Jomby and No. 111 Alejandro Gomez.
The Wildcats will return to action Sunday, Feb. 12, when they travel to take on No. 30 Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. Live scores from the match will be available at UKathletics.com.
For more information on the Kentucky men’s tennis team, follow “UKmenstennis” on Twitter or “University of Kentucky men’s tennis team” on Facebook.
