ORLANDO (UCFKnights.com) – The No. 31 UCF men's tennis team has earned the third seed in the American Athletic Conference Championships and will take on sixth-seeded Tulsa in the quarterfinals Friday at noon at the USTA National Campus.
The Knights (14-5) had a tremendous regular season in their first under the leadership of Director of Tennis and head coach John Roddick, finishing with their best win percentage (.737) since 2003. They accumulated wins against four top-30 program, No. 23 Texas Tech, No. 29 South Alabama, No. 29 Florida State, and No. 26 USF.
"Our goal from the beginning was to win the conference tournament and qualify for the NCAAs," Roddick said. "Where our ranking is right now, qualifying for the NCAAs looks good. There are never any guarantees of what's going to happen after the conference tournament, so our number one goal still remains, winning the conference tournament. Then all those things take care of themselves."
This is highest seeding UCF has garnered in The American Championships. The last two seasons the Knights were seeded sixth at the tournament.
Junior Korey Lovett has led the Knights at the number one position all season long and came in at No. 54 in the latest Oracle/ITA singles rankings. The Brevard, N.C., native first appeared in the rankings on Feb. 8 and has not fallen out of the Top-125. He has ranked as high as No. 43 this season.
"It's awesome," Lovett said of having the tournament at the new home for UCF Tennis, the USTA National Campus. "It's an advantage for us, because we get to sleep in our own beds. We play on these courts every day of the week, so it can only help."
The Knights will open up the tournament against a sixth-seeded Tulsa team that got the better of UCF the lone time they met in the regular season. The Golden Hurricane won a 4-3 match in Orlando back on March 10. Then No. 48 Tulsa came back from down 3-1 to upset the Knights.
The Golden Hurricane (10-16) enters the match having dropped their last nine contests, but their top singles player, Or Ram-Harel, is slotted No. 28 in the latest Oracle/ITA Singles rankings. He and Majed Kilani are ranked 45th as a doubles pair, but UCF's duo of Lovett and Danny Kerznerman defeated them 6-4 the last time out.
All matches during the American Athletic Conference Championship this weekend can be watched live online via USTANationalCampus.com. Live Results are also available by clicking here.
