It's a busy weekend for the UNM men's tennis team.
The UNM men’s tennis team will send four players to compete in the upcoming Balloon Fiesta Invitational this weekend. Albuquerque natives Michael Tran and Sean Baklini, will compete alongside teammates Augustus Ge and Rodolfo Jauregui in singles and doubles competition at the event.
At the same time, UNM head coach Bart Scott and the rest of the tennis squad are currently in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the ITA All-American Championships. Scott said this is one of the three college grand slams and the event is very important.
Doubles partners Hayden Sabatka and Bart Van Leijsen, ranked 29th in the country, have played their way into the main draw after defeating the University of North Florida pair Jack Findel-Hawkins and Yannick Zuern 7-5, 6-2 on Tuesday.
“I don’t know when the last time is we’ve had anybody qualify for the main draw in the All-American,” Scott said. “We’ve had people get direct acceptance into the main draw, but to come through qualifying is pretty special.”
Sabatka and Van Leijsen also advanced all the finals in the team’s first fall tournament in Midland, Texas before losing to Miroslav Herzan and Haru Inoue from Wichita State. Coach Scott said he wouldn’t be surprised to see that tandem crack the top 10 in the near future.
Scott said fall tennis consists mostly of individual tournaments. The main goal is to gain experience through competition in order to prepare the team for the spring. He said his concerns are pretty generalized and are probably things that coaches across the country deal with.
“It’s just a little rust. They’re not quite match tough. Sometimes they come back and they’re not quite as sharp, but that’s probably true in any sport,” Scott said. “The positives are that the guys are all competing hard; they really give their all.”
He said his expectations for the upcoming invitational are the same as any other event. Scott said he understands that as competitors, they want to win everything, but he said it’s more important for players to gain experience to make them physically and mentally tougher.
Scott said he has also been impressed with the start to Tran’s tennis career. Tran redshirted last year and recently won the first tournament he competed in, the Wildcat Invitational in Tucson, Arizona. After dropping the first set, Tran remained focus and battled back to win the match, Scott said.
The Balloon Fiesta Invitational takes place at the McKinnon Family Tennis Complex starting Friday and finishing Sunday. Other schools that will be competing at the Balloon Fiesta Invitational are the University of Denver, Air Force, New Mexico State, Arizona, Northern Arizona and Abilene-Christian.
Robert Maler is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @robert_maler
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