Tribe Men’s Tennis Releases 2007-08 Schedule

W&M will battle 11 teams that advanced to the 2007 NCAA Tournament.

08/28/07 1:00PM

Williamsburg - William and Mary head men’s tennis coach Peter Daub released the 2007-08 Tribe men’s tennis schedule. The ledger will once again be a test for the College as 14 dual matches will come against teams ranked in the ITA final top 75 poll and 11 total contests against 2007 NCAA Tournament teams.

The Tribe will open the fall campaign at the Virginia Invitational in Charlottesville, Va., Sept. 14-16. The second event of the season will be an invitational at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Va., Sept. 28-30. While some Tribe players will take part in the event at Virginia State, others will travel to Tulsa, Okla., to participate in the ITA All-American Championships. The pre-qualifying rounds for the event start on Sept. 29-30, while the qualifying event is slated for Oct. 1-3. The main draw of the ITA All-American Championships will be Oct. 4-7.

W&M will look to bring home a regional championship for the second straight season in the following tournament. The ITA Mideast Region Championship is slated for Oct. 18-22 in Charlottesville. Last season, the W&M pair of Colin O’Brien and Alex Cojanu defeated six straight ACC foes to win the Mideast Region Doubles title.

The ITA National Indoor Championships are slated for Nov. 1-4 in Columbus, Ohio. Last season, O’Brien and Cojanu took part in the event as one of 16 doubles teams from across the country to compete in the competition. The same week, W&M will once again host the Tribe Invitational. It will mark the second straight season in which the College has hosted its own Invitational during the month of November at the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center.

W&M will take part in the South Florida Invitational for the third straight season to open the month of January. The event will be Jan. 11-13 with Memphis, Florida A&M and South Florida set to compete along with the Tribe.

The Tribe’s spring dual match season includes matches against 14 teams that finished last season ranked among the ITA top 75. Included in that number are 10 teams who were in the top 40. The list of ranked foes the Tribe will be fac-ing in 2008 include: No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Virginia, No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 13 Wake Forest, No. 24 Boise State, No. 28 VCU, No. 30 Old Dominion, No. 34 Rice, No. 36 Georgia State, No. 40 Minnesota, No. 54 Western Michigan, No. 60 Northwestern, No. 74 Harvard and No. 75 Purdue. Boise State, Georgia, Georgia State, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Old Dominion, Rice, Virginia, VCU, Wake Forest and Western Michigan were the 11 teams on the W&M schedule to ad-vance to the 2007 NCAA Tournament.

The College will have 10 dual matches in Williamsburg. The Tribe will open at home with a double header against Temple (3 p.m.) and Richmond (7:30 p.m.) on Jan. 18. W&M will also have double headers at home on Jan. 26 against Wake Forest and Longwood, Feb. 9 against Norfolk State and George Mason and Feb. 17 against Rice and James Madison. The Tribe will also host Big Ten foe Northwestern on Feb. 10 and defending CAA Champion Georgia State on Feb. 15.

W&M’s slated away matches are at Virginia (Jan. 19), at Old Dominion (Jan. 23), at Brown (Jan. 31), at Harvard (Feb. 1), at Purdue (Feb. 3), at Boise State (March 2), at Georgia (March 5), at VCU (March 29) and at Notre Dame (April 6). Included in the Tribe’s trips to Boise State and Notre Dame, W&M will play a pair of neutral site matches. In Boise, Idaho, W&M will face Big Ten foe Minnesota (March 3), before facing defending Mid-American Conference Cham-pion Western Michigan (April 4) on its trip to South Bend, Ind.

Along with the schedule dual match affairs, the Tribe will compete in the Blue Gray Classic for the 10th time in Mont-gomery, Ala., March 13-15. The Classic field will once again be stacked, including 15 ranked in the top 75 at the end of the 2007 season and 13 teams that advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The Tribe will be joined by No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 11 Oklahoma State, No. 14 Alabama, No. 19 North Carolina State, No. 22 Tulsa, No. 24 Boise State, No. 26 Oklahoma, No. 28 VCU, No. 29 Auburn, No. 32 Wisconsin, No. 33 Texas Tech, No. 43 Penn State, No. 64 Furman, No. 71 Fresno State and Brown.

Last season, W&M compiled a 2-1 record for the third time at the event. After dropping a tight opening round match to N.C. State, the Tribe defeated then-No. 50 Louisville and then-No. 34 Middle Tennessee State in its final two matches of the event.

The 2008 CAA Championship is slated for April 17-20 at the Huntington Park Tennis Center in Newport News, Va. The College advanced to the semifinals of the tournament before falling to Old Dominion last season. The NCAA Re-gionals will be held the weekend of May 9-11 at campus sites. The NCAA Championships will be May 16-26 in Tulsa, Okla.

2007-08 W&M Men's Tennis Schedule (HTML)
2007-08 W&M Men's Tennis Schedule (PDF)