No. 3 Texas at Miami Spring Invite (No. 8 Georgia, No. 11 UCF, Miami)
When: Fri.-Sun., Jan. 7-9, 2022
Where: Neil Schiff Tennis Center, Coral Gables, Fla.
Live Stats:
Day One – http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=381772
Day Two – http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=381773
Day Three – http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=381774
Format: Best of three sets for singles/eight-game pro set for doubles. Note that this is not a dual match competition, all results will be individual and not team.
Schedule (local time is eastern)
Friday
9 a.m. ET/8 a.m. CT – Miami/Georgia – Singles
1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT – Miami/Texas – Doubles
1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT – UCF/Georgia – Doubles
2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT – Texas/UCF – Singles
Saturday
9 a.m. ET/8 a.m. CT – Miami/UCF – Singles
1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT – UCF/Texas – Doubles
1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT – Miami/Georgia – Doubles
2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT – Texas/Georgia – Singles
Sunday
8 a.m. ET/7 a.m. CT – UCF/Georgia – Singles
10:30 a.m. ET/9:30 a.m. CT – Georgia/Texas – Doubles
12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT – Miami/UCF – Doubles
1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT – Miami/Texas – Singles
Notes
-ITA Preseason Rankings
Texas was ranked No. 3 in the 2022 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Preseason Top 25 Coaches Poll announced Jan. 5. The ranking equals where the Longhorns completed the 2021 season, which was their third-straight top-five finish, and it marks the 40th-straight week the team has been rated in the top 10 dating back to the beginning of the 2019 season. The poll is voted on by the ITA National Ranking Committee. All six members of the Big 12 received votes for the poll with three ranking in the top five, including Baylor at No. 2 and TCU at No. 5. Oklahoma was No. 24, while Oklahoma State and Texas Tech both received votes.
-Challenging non-conference schedule
The Longhorns have 12 non-conference dual matches scheduled this season against teams that appear in the preseason ITA national rankings, including home matches with No. 1 Florida (Jan. 16), RV Columbia (Jan. 29), No. 11 UCF (Feb. 13), No. 6 Ohio State (Mar. 12), and No. 24 Oklahoma (Mar. 27), and road contests at No. 15 Arizona (Jan. 21), RV Arizona State (Jan. 23), No. 2 Baylor (Feb. 4), No. 8 Georgia (Mar. 1), No. 19 Texas A&M (Mar. 9), No. 9 USC (Mar. 15), No. 22 Pepperdine (Mar. 18). The matches against Baylor and Oklahoma are both prior to Big 12 play and are non-conference with those teams meeting again later in conference play.
-Back from the Final Four
Heading into the fourth season under head coach Bruce Berque, Texas returns almost all of its regular singles and doubles lineups from a team that reached the Final Four of last year’s NCAA Championships. Of the retuning players, Eliot Spizzirri earned All-America honors in both singles and doubles last season, while Siem Woldeab did so in doubles and was a second-team All-Big 12 selection in singles. Micah Braswell was also second-team all-conference in singles and named the unanimous Big 12 Freshman of the Year, while Cleeve Harper shared the Big 12 Individual Championship at No. 4 singles. Chih Chi Huang and Evin McDonald return after playing majority of the matches at No. 5 and No. 6 singles, respectively, as do Nevin Arimilli and Eshan Talluri.
-Two New Faces
The Longhorns add two new faces in graduate transfer Richard Ciamarra from Notre Dame, who arrived in the fall, and true freshman Pierre-Yves Bailly, who joins the team for the spring. Ciamarra was a 2020 ITA All-American in singles and a three-time All-ACC selection and was ranked as high as No. 6 in singles and No. 28 in doubles in 2021. Bailly has been the top junior player in Belgium and reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open Juniors, along with the second round of the Roland Garros Juniors, in 2021.
-Berque at the Helm
Bruce Berque begins his fourth season as the head coach at Texas having taken over midway through the 2019 season. From there, he has led the Longhorns to a 52-11 overall record (.825) that includes 24-6 last season with an appearance in the Final Four, 13-3 in a season shortened by the pandemic in 2020, and 15-2 in 2019 en route to the guiding Texas to its first team National Championship. The Longhorns also earned the Big 12 regular season championship that year. Texas finished ranked in the top four in all three of those seasons at No. 3 in 2021, No. 4 in 2020 and No. 1 in 2019.
-Summer/Fall Wrap-up
Eliot Spizzirri and Chih Chi Huang both missed all of fall singles play due to injury with Huang also missing doubles, but Spizzirri played in limited doubles at the ITA Fall Nationals. Richard Ciamarra and Siem Woldeab were also working through injuries in the fall. However, over the summer, Spizzirri won the singles title of the ITF Futures in Decatur, Ill. for his first pro singles title, along with winning the doubles title at the ITF Futures in Champaign, Ill., the week before. He then earned a singles qualifying wild card to the U.S. Open and advanced to the second round with a win over ATP No. 163 Alejandro Tabilo. After that, he received a doubles main draw wild card at the U.S. Open. Later in the fall, Spizzirri and Woldeab reached the quarterfinals of the ITA Fall Nationals, and Spizzirri later paired with former Longhorn Colin Markes to make the semifinals of the DropshotLLC Pro Tennis Open in Austin.
Micah Braswell posted eight singles wins in the fall, including reaching the semifinals of the ITA Texas Regionals where he came up just short in three sets to No. 18 Juan Carlos Aguilar. Cleeve Harper picked up his first pro title, taking the M15 Cancun with partner Liam Draxl. Prior to that, Harper and Ciamarra reached the finals of the ITA Texas Regionals shortly after advancing to the round of 16 at the ITA All-American Championships. January enrollee Pierre-Yves Bailly also captured his first pro singles title at the Monastir 15K in Tunisia and additionally reached the doubles final there in November 2021.
-Final Fall ITA Individual National Rankings
Texas had five listings in the final fall ITA individual rankings that were released Dec. 8 with three in singles and two doubles pairs, however Eliot Spizzirri did not play singles in the fall and did not appear in the rankings.
Singles
No. 20 Micah Braswell
No. 73 Cleeve Harper
No. 105 Siem Woldeab
Doubles
No. 13 Richard Ciamarra/Cleeve Harper
No. 23 Eliot Spizzirri/Siem Woldeab
-Year Five at the Texas Tennis Center
Texas completed its fourth year of play at the Texas Tennis Center with a 14-2 mark in 2021, which included wins over No. 6 Texas A&M, No. 9 Florida and No. 15 Arizona, and has compiled a 48-5 overall record there. That also includes a 9-0 mark in a shortened season in 2020 that featured wins against No. 8 Stanford, No. 18 Georgia and No. 21 Florida State. The Longhorns finished 2019 with a 15-1 mark, including wins over No. 1 Ohio State, No. 6 Baylor and No. 12 Columbia, along with three NCAA Tournament victories. The lone loss came to No. 15 USC. During its inaugural season, Texas posted a 10-2 record, including winning the 2018 Big 12 Tournament.
