With tennis’ fall season coming to a close, the Texas men’s tennis team attempts to cap off an impressive season with a dominant performance in the DropshotLLC Men’s Pro Tennis Open at the Texas Tennis Center.
The tournament will feature 11 current and former Longhorns with five players looking to earn their way into the bracket with qualifying draws, while the other five have already made it to the main draw.
Longhorn sophomores Nevin Arimilli and Chih Chi Huang, freshmen Jacob Bullard and Eshan Talluri and Texas alum Colin Markes will be the five participating in the qualifying draw. Senior Yuya Ito, freshmen Cleeve Harper, Evin McDonald, Siem Woldeab and former Longhorn Rodrigo Banzer will begin play on Tuesday in the main draw.
Additionally, two Longhorn high school recruits will be participating in the tournament with Elliot Spizzirri competing in the main draw and Leighton Allen in the qualifying draw.
This is the inaugural year of the tournament, and it will last for the entire week. The tournament will be free of charge to help bring more attention to the Austin community and promises to bring some of the best players in the world from the professional to the amateur ranks.
Last week, the final fall ITA rankings for doubles and singles featured seven Longhorn men. Texas stands as the only team in the country to have two players in the top 15 for singles and a pair in the top ten for doubles.
The main beneficiaries of the final list were true freshman Siem Woldeab at No. 53, senior Christian Sigsgaard at No. 13, and senior Yuya Ito at No. 2 in the country. Ito, who will be competing this weekend, had an excellent fall winning two national championships in singles. His most recent win came at the Oracle Fall National Championships.
For the doubles pairs, Ito and Sigsgaard went from No. 17 to No. 4. Woldeab entered at No. 23 with Sigsgaard and No. 38 with Ito. The freshman duo of Bullard and Talluri round out the pairs at No.46.
Ito and the other nine longhorn men’s tennis players will look to keep their momentum going and show out at their home tournament. After this week’s tournament, the Longhorns will start their spring season in 2020 with the Miami invitational in January.
