University of Tennessee Athletics
Three Vols Set To Open Men’s Tennis Championship
May 22, 2018 | Men's Tennis
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The 2018 Men's Tennis Championship begins this week at Wake Forest Tennis Complex, and three players representing Tennessee will look to claim a national title.
Junior Timo Stodder will compete in his first match of the singles draw on Wednesday, May 23 at 1 p.m., while the duo of redshirt-junior Preston Touliatos and senior Luis Valero are scheduled to play in the opening round of the doubles bracket on Thursday, May 24. Start times for doubles first-round matches will be announced on Wednesday.
To stay up to date with updated brackets, results, stats and more, visit the NCAA Men's Tennis Championship tournament central page.
Stodder, who concluded the 2017-18 team season with a 29-13 record, is slated to face Jake Douglas of Washington in the first round. Douglas went 15-5 this season for the Huskies, including a 9-4 mark when playing at No. 1 in the lineup. In the latest ITA collegiate rankings released on May 3, Douglas was listed as the 46th ranked player in the country, with Stodder coming in at No. 20.
Stodder earned an at-large bid in the singles draw for the second consecutive season. Last year, he fell in the first round to TCU's Alex Rybakov. Stodder is seeded in the 9-16 grouping.
Touliatos and Valero, meanwhile, did not play a match together until nearly midway through the season, when coach Chris Woodruff experimented with the duo in a match against then-No. 20 Duke. Touliatos and Valero would become the team's top pairing, posting a 12-4 record while competing in each match at No. 1. They defeated five ranked pairings during the season, and have not lost consecutive matches. The duo was ranked No. 7 in the last ITA doubles rankings, and is seeded in the 5-8 grouping going into the 32-pair bracket.
Touliatos and Valero will take on Brandon Holt and Riley Smith of Southern California. The Trojans' top duo assembled a 16-3 record during the team season and is ranked No. 10 in the ITA doubles rankings.
Valero was also a part of the last Vols' pairing to compete in the NCAA Championship, as he and Jack Schipanski earned a bid in 2016. Valero, along with Touliatos, will look to capture the program's third national championship in doubles, with the first won by Rodney Harmon and Mel Purcell in 1980, and the second by Hunter Reese and Mikelis Libietis in 2014.
Stodder will try to follow in the footsteps of his head coach, as Chris Woodruff's 1993 title remains the only national championship in singles in program history.
