AUBURN, Ala. – Men’s tennis is set to take part in ITA Kickoff Weekend on Saturday and Sunday at Barksdale Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee. Auburn will face No. 25 Michigan on Saturday at 8 a.m. CT before facing either host school No. 14 Tennessee or Illinois on Sunday. If the Tigers win both matches, they will secure a bid to the 2025 ITA National Team Indoor Championship in February.
“It was good to see a lot this weekend and get our eyes on those new guys,” said Auburn head coach Bobby Reynolds. “We’re going to put it out there and let it go. Ultimately, we’re trying to make National Indoors and the path to do that goes through Knoxville for us.”
Auburn will enter the weekend 2-0 after opening the season with wins over Mercer and North Alabama. Senior Will Nolan remained perfect in Auburn’s season opening doubleheader on Friday, posting two singles wins and two doubles wins in the team victories. In his first career wins at No. 1 in the Tigers’ singles lineup, Nolan recorded two straight set victories over Nemanja Stefanovic of Mercer and Lachlan Brain of North Alabama. Nolan also appeared at the top of the Auburn doubles lineup with junior Billy Blaydes, and the pair picked up two dominant victories and now hold a 12-3 record as a doubles team this season.
Michigan cracked the ITA top-25 in the preseason rankings and remained at No. 25 after their opening match shutout of Ball State on Saturday. The Wolverines’ roster features two ranked singles players and two ranked doubles teams. Gavin Young and Benjamin Kittay are currently ranked No. 5 in the nation in doubles and hold a 9-2 record together. Young, who is ranked 59th in the nation in singles, posted a 12-9 dual match singles record last season regularly playing at the top of the Michigan singles lineup.
“Michigan plays a lot of indoor tennis because they stay indoors all the way through March or April,” Reynolds said about the Wolverines. “They have a bunch of big guys that hold serve, that come forward, that serve and volley, that take second serves and will put pressure on us. So we have to be ready for them to play downhill. It’s a bit contrary to what you see in the SEC and playing outdoors where you see slow court tennis with long rallies and grinding people down.”
Tennessee and Illinois will face off after the Tigers and Wolverines on Saturday. On Sunday, the winners of each match will play for a spot in the ITA National Team Indoor Championship no earlier than noon CT while the losers of the Saturday matches will play a consolation match prior to that at 9 a.m. CT.
Live video of each match will be available online through Playsight while live scoring of each match will be available online at utsports.com.