ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's and women's tennis teams will split up this weekend for invitationals hosted by New Mexico State and Boise State. The men head west to Albuquerque for the
Aggie Invitational, while the women travel to Idaho and Appleton OTC for the
Jack Taylor Classic.
Both tournaments run all day from Friday to Sunday.
ACU's men's team was met with success at last year's Aggie Invitational as junior Borja Cortés and then-senior
Hans Hach won the doubles championship with wins over teams from Western New Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico State. Hach also captured the singles championship, beating Western New Mexico's Rodrigo Almeida in the finals, 6-2, 6-0.
This year's field features many of the same opposing schools in addition to New Mexico, Northern Arizona, Arizona Christian and Texas-Permian Basin.
Cortés is one of three Wildcats featured in the Crimson Singles Draw along with sophomore
Nicklas Wingord and junior
Guilherme Gesser. Wingord had a solid showing last weekend at the Midland Collegiate Invitational, winning three of five matches and reaching the semifinals of the consolation bracket. Cortés and Gesser, meanwhile, each won one match.
Elsewhere in singles, youngsters
Jason Proctor and
Nico Agritelley will be featured in the White Draw, while sophomore
Marco Bensley and freshmen
Austin Priess have been entered into the Black Draw. Both Bensley and Priess will be making their season debuts.
In his collegiate debut last weekend at Midland, Agritelley won his first-round match over New Mexico's Tanner Berkabile, 6-2, 7-5, but later lost a hard-fought match to TCU's Rodolfo Bustamante, 6-3, 7-5. He and Proctor then went 1-1 in doubles. They will be paired up again this weekend.
Other ACU doubles combinations will include Bensley and Wingord and Cortés and Gesser. Bensley and Wingord went 3-3 as a team in dual matches played last spring at the No. 3 position.
ACU's women's team has yet to play in Boise as last year's Wildcats opted to play at a tournament hosted by Rice the same weekend some of their male teammates ventured to the Gem State to take on teams from Gonzaga, Oregon, Portland and Montana.
This past weekend, ACU's women's team was represented by four of its players in Midland, while the remaining three –
Ansley Boarman,
Emily Conrad and
Nada Marjanovic – all were dispatched to Albuquerque. A freshman, Boarman won the third-place match in her flight and went 1-3 with Conrad in doubles.
Conrad placed seventh in her singles' flight and Marjanovic went 1-2 in reaching the finals of her consolation bracket.
In Midland, freshman
Erin Walker scored the Wildcats' biggest win as she upset ninth-seeded and 114th-ranked Viktoryia Kisialeva of Baylor, 3-6, 6-4, (1-0) during their second-round match. Walker, however, went on to lose to fifth-seeded Dominique Harmuth of Rice in third round by a score of 6-1, 6-1.
Senior
Micah Hermsdorf was the only other Wildcat there to win two singles matches, beating Danielle Feneridis of Pepperdine, 6-0, 2-6, (1-0) and Dylan Wisdom of Kansas, 6-4, 6-2.
