ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 11 men's tennis team will host a region of the 2022 ITA Kickoff Weekend on Jan. 30-31, marking the first time in program history that they will host the event. They'll welcome No. 19 Stanford, No. 23 Tulane and No. 51 Louisville to Orlando in early 2022, with one team advancing through to ITA National Indoors.
The Black and Gold will open ITA Kickoff Weekend against Louisville on Jan. 30 before facing either Stanford or Tulane the following day, depending on the result of each match. The two winners from day one will face off in the championship match on Jan. 31 at 1 p.m. as they'll look to punch their ticket to ITA National Indoors.
The top 15 teams from last season's final Oracle/ITA rankings earned the right to host a four-team bracket as part of ITA Kickoff Weekend for the upcoming season. The 15 winners from each region will join the Huskies in Washington for ITA National Indoors sometime in February. The Knights have never reached ITA National Indoors.
Teams in the ITA Kickoff Draft are assigned pick numbers based on their finish in the previous season's final Oracle/ITA rankings and regional finishes. Stanford selected to be the two seed in the Knights' region with the No. 4 pick of the draft while Tulane used the No. 8 pick to be the weekend's No. 3 seed. Louisville elected to be the fourth seed with the 34th pick in the draft.
The Jan. 30 meeting between UCF and Louisville will be just the fourth in program history, with the Knights holding a 2-1 edge in the all-time series. The Black and Gold will face either Stanford or Tulane on day two of the event. The Knights have played Stanford just once before, losing to the Cardinal in the 2019 ITA Kickoff Weekend opener in Palo Alto. UCF has met conference-foe Tulane plenty more times than Stanford, going 4-6 against the Green Wave and winning three of the last four meetings.
The UCF women's tennis team also earned the right to host for ITA Kickoff Weekend and will host the two days prior to the men.
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