University of Tennessee Athletics
VOLS ANNOUNCE 2006-07 TENNIS SCHEDULE
August 17, 2006 | Men's Tennis
Aug. 17, 2006
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The Tennessee men's tennis will face 13 teams that advanced to the NCAA tournament last season as head coach Chris Mahony announced the 2006-07 tennis schedule Thursday. The schedule also includes the inaugural Volunteer State Challenge, which will be hosted by UT from Oct. 13-15.
"We are excited about this very difficult dual match schedule," Mahony said. "I am obviously challenging our guys by playing top-10 out of conference teams like Virginia, Ohio State, and Illinois on top of the regular SEC schedule. However, these are the type of matches we need in order to push ourselves and improve. I believe this group of guys is up to the challenge."
The Volunteers begin the 2006 fall season in Sept. when the squad travels to Athens, Ga., to participate in the Southern Intercollegiate Championships. Also in Sept., the team will play in the MTSU Fall Invitational in Murfreesboro. The entire squad will travel to Tulsa, Okla., for the Polo Ralph Lauren All-American Championships in the beginning of October.
The Volunteer State Challenge in the middle of Oct., will be the first and only chance in the fall for the hometown fans to see the Vols. ETSU, MTSU, Memphis and Vanderbilt will send players to compete in the three-day tournament. The Big Orange end the fall schedule when they travel to Tallahassee to participate in the Florida State Fall Invitational.
UT begins the dual-match portion of its schedule with two home matches against Memphis and Louisville at the end of January. In Feb., the Vols face a tough three-match stretch as they travel to Illinois, come home to face Ohio State and then travel to Virginia to face the ACC power Cavaliers. Ohio State and Virginia advanced to the quarterfinals of last year's NCAA tournament.
The Vols open the SEC season with two home matches at the beginning of March against LSU and Arkansas. Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss and Mississippi State will also visit Knoxville this season. Two seasons ago, Tennessee went 5-1 against those teams at home and will look for that type of success again this season. The Big Orange have a tough SEC road schedule with dates against Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. Four of the five teams advanced to the NCAA tournament last season and Georgia is the defending SEC champion and advanced to the championship match of the NCAA tournament.
The SEC tournament is being held in Baton Rouge, La., from April 19-22. The NCAA Championships are being held in Athens, Ga., on the campus of the University of Georgia from May 19-28.
