LAWTON, Okla. – The Cameron men's tennis team begins their quest for a National Championship as they take on No. 7 West Florida in the first round of the NCAA Division II Tournament on Tuesday at 11 a.m. (CT).
The No. 13 ranked Aggies, who enter the tournament as the eight seed, punched their ticket to Altamonte Springs, Fla. by beating St. Edwards 4-0 in the South Central Regional 2 last week. They enter the tournament with a 19-4 record, having won 16 of their last 17 matches and on the heels of a regular season Lone Star Conference Championship.
Cameron is led by senior's
Vinicius Santos and
Przemyslaw Zielinski. Santos, the LSC's Player of the Year, is ranked No. 6 in singles play and No. 15 in doubles by the ITA. During his senior season, he posted a 13-5 singles record with a 4-2 mark against national ranked opponents while going 18-4 with his doubles partner
Julen Gutierrez. Zielinski has come back from a knee injury late last year to go 12-2 in singles play and 15-5 in doubles during his final year at CU; he is ranked No. 73 in singles and No. 44 in doubles.
West Florida had to win a pair of matches in their regional to advance to the national stage, beating Rollins College 4-0 and Valdosta State 4-2. They went 22-6 during the regular season, with one of their six losses coming at the hands of CU; the Aggies defeated the Argos 4-1 on March 15 in San Antonio, Texas.
The Argo's are led by the No. 5 ranked singles player in DII, Serdar Bojadjiev. He is one of three UWF players ranked in the ITA's top-100 as Juan Motta is ranked No. 41 and Juan Cabrera is No. 74. Additionally, Bojadjiev and Vitinho Galvao are ranked No. 25 as a doubles pair.
In their previous matchup, Cameron took an early lead with wins at both the one and two doubles spots. West Florida tied the match with a win at two singles, but
Oscar del Granado and
Pierre Marion quickly gave CU a 3-1 lead with wins at three and six. Santos claimed the final point, defeating Bojadjiev 6-4, 0-6, 7-6.
Should the Aggies defeat UWF for the second time this season, they would go on to face the winning of the Barry/Southern Arkansas match. Barry is the tournament's No. 1 overall seed, while the Muleriders are the 16 seed. That match would be Wednesday at 3 p.m. (CT).
Live results and an interactive bracket for all of the DII Men's Tennis Championship can be found on ncaa.com.
