Men’s Tennis Central: #10 Tennessee vs. #3 TCU
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In a rematch of the 2022 ITA National Indoor Championship Finals, the 10th-ranked Tennessee men’s tennis team will face the No. 3 TCU at home at the Goodfriend Tennis Center Thursday at 5 p.m. ET .
Tennessee (6-2) and the undefeated Horned Frogs (5-0) meet for the third time in the past two seasons. Live stats will be provided by UTsports.com and can be found here. The live stream is available for free through Playsight here.
Admission is free and free tennis parking is located at SC40 in the Kingston Pike building. Additional parking information is available here. A free pizza will be offered to fans during Thursday’s game.
LAST TIME OUT
Tennessee booked its trip to the ITA Indoor National Championship for a third straight season with a 4-3 win over Oklahoma. Johannus Monday’s tiebreaker victory in the third set concluded the four-hour battle.
TCU SCOUTING
Thursday marks the 10th all-time meeting between the Vols and the Horned Frogs. Holding an all-time 7-2 advantage over TCU, Tennessee has won the first five games of the series, which dates back to 1983, and won two of the last three.
The Vols and Frogs went 2002-18 without meeting, before renewing the streak in 2019, a 4-0 victory over TCU in Knoxville. In a consolation match at the 2021 ITA Indoor National Championship, the No. 10 Vols earned a 4-3 win over third-seeded TCU. Then, a season ago, No. 4 UT traveled to Fort Worth for a 4-3 win over No. 5 TCU in a nearly five-hour affair. The most recent meeting between the two teams was at the 2022 ITA Indoors Finals, with TCU emerging with a 4-1 victory.
TCU opened its 2023 campaign with victories over Abilene Christian, SMU and Tulsa, before earning a pair of 4-0 sweeps over Gonzaga and Texas Tech at the ITA Kickoff Weekend’s Fort Worth Regional to advance to the Indoor Nationals for a fifth consecutive season. TCU has won 31 of its 36 doubles points since the start of the 2022 double season.
FLIGHTS IN THE RANKING
Simple
#59 – Shunsuke Mitsui
#81 – Emile Hudd
#86 – Blaise Bicknell
Double
#25 – Emile Hudd/Shunsuke Mitsui
HORNED FROGS IN THE CLASSIFICATION
Simple
#8 – Jake Fearnley
#28 – Luc Fomba
#76 – Pedro Vives
Double
#4 – Alexander Jong / Lui Maxted
ROBBERY FACING TOP-5 ENEMIES IN KNOXVILLE
A win for Tennessee on Thursday would be its first home win against a top-five opponent since April 12, 2008, when the 10th-seeded Vols beat No. 3 Georgia 4-3. Tennessee currently holds an ITA ranking of No. 10, with TCU at No. 3.
MILESTONES FOLLOW-UP
• Bicknell’s third-place singles win on Saturday to help the Vols pass Oklahoma marked his 60th career singles win and seventh for Orange & White.
• Graduate students Pat Harper and Emile Hudd each have 82 career doubles wins. Harper’s 82 wins have come at Tennessee, while Hudd’s 39 have come since joining Rocky Top.
• Sophomore sensation Shunsuke Mitsui is one singles victory away from his 50th career win on the singles court. He is 49-13 overall in singles and 29-6 in doubles singles.
FAST HITTERS
• Tennessee’s 4-3 victory over Oklahoma in Saturday’s ITA launch weekend took 4 hours and 4 minutes of Monday’s first serve clinch.
• Five different Flights have won Tennessee’s six wins this season: Boris Kozlov (1), Blaise Bicknell (2), Martim Prata (1), Emile Hudd (1) and Johannus Monday (1).
• Tennessee have won nine top-10 wins since the start of the 2021 dual season, including six top-five triumphs.
• Thursday is the fourth consecutive top-10 meeting between the Vols and the Frogs.
• With a top-10 shuffle in Knoxville, this is the first such home game for UT since top-ranked Tennessee defeated No.10 Wake Forest, 4-3 on the 25th. January 2022.
NEXT
Tennessee is taking a week off after Thursday’s action, before traveling to New York for a road doubles match with No. 19 Columbia on Saturday, February 11. The Big Apple’s first service is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET.
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