After receiving a top-10 seed in the NCAA Tournament selection show, Texas is slated to face off against the Navy Midshipmen in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship this weekend.
As the No. 9 seed, the Longhorns will be one of 16 teams that will host matches for the first two rounds. All 16 of the top seeds in the tournament will be hosting rounds one and two, and teams that advance to the Round of 16 will head to the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco for the remainder of the tournament.
The Longhorns’ match against Navy will be their first matchup with the Midshipmen since 2007, which resulted in a 4–0 victory for the Longhorns in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Navy will enter the tournament as an automatic qualifier after claiming the Patriot League title with a season record of 20–10. The Midshipmen are the only team from the Patriot League to receive a tournament bid.
Coming into the championships, these two teams are trending in the opposite direction, as the Longhorns have dropped three of their last four matches while Navy has won four of their last five, including three-straight victories in the Patriot League tournament. However, all four matches for Texas came against ranked opponents, while the Midshipmen played zero ranked teams.
With a top-10 ranking and five seniors on the roster, Texas hopes to head to Waco and make a deep run in this year’s NCAA Tournament. First, they will have to take care of business in rounds one and two, beginning at 1 p.m. Friday at the Caswell Tennis Center in Austin.