ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's tennis team will begin its 2012 season with a three-day, five match tour of Kentucky. The Wildcats' venture begins Friday in Murray, Ky., with a doubleheader vs. Murray State (0-1) and Southern Indiana (0-0) followed by a second twin bill on Saturday with Eastern Kentucky (2-2) and Northern Kentucky (1-0). The trip concludes Sunday with a dual vs. the No. 7 Kentucky Wildcats (6-0).
How good are the Kentucky Wildcats? Well, for starters they have all six starters nationally ranked by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) led by No. 5 Eric Quigley and No. 13 Alex Musialek, and this past weekend they clinched a spot at the National Indoor Team Championships thanks to No. 111 Alejandro Gomez' three-set win over Tulsa's Tristan Jackson.
Kentucky has also hammered Michigan State and Indiana this spring by 6-1 and 7-0 margins and shut out North Carolina State 4-0 at the ITA Kickoff Weekend.
ACU's Wildcats can't be overlooked either as they begin the year ranked sixth nationally led by No. 6
Hans Hach and No. 43
Alfredo Desiati. Senior
Nick Plum is receiving votes in the ITA poll as a singles player, and comprises the No. 22 doubles team with Hach.
Plum and Hach were the only two DII student-athletes to compete at the prestigious 2011 Racquet Club Invitational this past fall in Midland, Texas, and together they won two doubles contests before losing to Tulsa's Grant Ive and Jackson, 9-8, in the quarterfinals.
Plum, as a singles player, reached the USTA/ITA South Central Regional quarterfinals behind three straight victories over Luca Radulovic of St. Edward's, No. 4 seed Thomas Peixoto of Cameron, and Leury Arias of Incarnate Word.
Hach's highlight of the fall was winning the South Central Regional championship over Southwest Baptist's Domingos Carissimo, which allowed him to compete at the USTA/ITA National Small College Championships where he placed third. As the No. 2 seed, Hach seed began the tournament with a 6-0, 6-0 triumph over BYU-Hawaii's Yevhan Zakharov before falling to third-seeded Daniele Piludu of Concordia-New York in the semifinals, 6-4, 6-3.
Hach reached the third-round of the singles main draw at the Racquet Club Invitational in addition to winning the Aggie (New Mexico State) Tennis Invitational. Hach's run through the Aggie Invitational included wins over five DI opponents from Arizona, New Mexico and New Mexico State. The sophomore defeated New Mexico's Sammy Iftikhar in the finals, 7-6, 6-1.
Desiati, a junior, also had a productive fall season that included a quarterfinal appearance at the South Central Regional Championships. He also advanced to the semifinals of the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islander Invitational where he was defeated 6-0, 6-2 by top-seeded Aurelien Tave of A&M-CC.
Joining the Wildcats in time for the spring season is freshman Borja Cortés, who as a Barcelona native, attained a Spanish men's singles national ranking of 154 and was ranked among the top 50 in Spanish Juniors (U-18). Cortés first attended Laredo (Texas) Junior College but did not compete for the Palominos.
Southern Indiana is home to the No. 12 doubles team of Diego Gimenez and Juan Quiroz who placed sixth finished sixth at the National Small College Championship. Gimenez also is receiving votes among DII singles players, as is Northern Kentucky's Martin Leroy.
