Texas will hit the courts today for the second of seven matches on the schedule over the next two weeks. The Longhorns kicked the stretch off with a 7-0 shutout over TCU this past Sunday.
The No. 11 Longhorns will take on San Diego in Austin at 6 p.m. Led by No. 50-ranked freshman Soren Hess-Olesen and No. 79-ranked junior Daniel Whitehead, the Longhorns will look to add another win on the season before heading into a Saturday doubleheader against Florida State and Nicholls State.
San Diego is moving back up in the ITA rankings after dropping out of the Top 25 earlier this season. They are led by three ranked singles players — No. 63 Nikola Bubnic, No. 80 Patrick Pohlmann and No. 102 Thibaut Visy. However, the team is coming off a 5-2 loss to No. 11 California last week in which all three players were defeated.
The Longhorns will look to post another win after dominating TCU. Texas only dropped one doubles match on the day, and all but two singles matches were won in straight sets. The team will also need to avoid getting into lengthy matches, as they will only have a day to recover before hosting the doubleheader on Saturday, followed by a Tuesday home matchup against the No. 1 team in the country, USC.
This may be the toughest stretch of the Longhorn’s schedule this season. After another doubleheader on March 18, the team will get an 11-day break before starting conference play. Right now, Texas is the highest-ranked Big 12 team, followed by No. 17 Texas A&M, No. 23 Texas Tech, No. 38 Baylor and No. 35 Oklahoma, who they will face in Austin at the end of the month to start conference play.