May 10, 2018
By Joanne Norell
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — The 25th-ranked University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team looks to extend its season in the opening rounds of the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championship, where it will face Western Michigan in first-round action Saturday at the Varsity Tennis Center at the University of Michigan.
Match 32
WHAT: NCAA Championship First Round
WHO: No. 25 Notre Dame (18-13) vs. Western Michigan (22-4)
WHERE: Ann Arbor, Mich. | Varsity Tennis Center
WHEN: 10 a.m. ET Sunday
LINKS: Tournament Central | Bracket | Live Scoring | Live Stream (if indoors) |Twitter
Irish In The NCAA Championship
Notre Dame will play in the NCAA Championship for the 26th time in 28 seasons when the Irish take on Western Michigan in a first-round matchup on Saturday. Their best finish under the current team tournament format came in 1992 when they finished runner-up, but Notre Dame was NCAA co-champions in 1944 and 1959, when champions were decided by points scored by individual player wins. The Irish will look to advance to the national site for the first time since 2014, when the team progressed to the Round of 16.
The Irish were picked as the No. 2 seed in their 2018 regional pod and will face No. 3 seed Western Michigan at Michigan’s Varsity Tennis Center. On the other side of the pod are top-seed Michigan (15th overall seed) and No. 4 seed Cleveland State. The winners of those two matches will meet Sunday for a chance to advance to the NCAA quarterfinal at Wake Forest.
On The Broncos
The Irish will meet Western Michigan, an automatic qualifier after claiming the Mid-American Conference championship. The Broncos went 22-4 on the season, including 7-0 in the MAC, and their only losses coming against Drake (Jan. 20), Michigan (Feb. 18), Penn State (March 2) and Princeton (March 4). They also boast a pair of Big Ten wins over Iowa (Jan. 19) and Michigan State (Feb. 9).
Western Michigan is led by Maik Steiner, who is 17-5 at No. 1 singles, while Jannik Opitz is 19-4, Lenhard Haupt is 18-5 and Matej Svjetlicic is 23-2.
The Irish are 42-20 in the all-time series against Western Michigan, including 1-0 under Callaghan Family Head Men’s Tennis Coach Ryan Sachire. The last meeting between the schools came in 2016 when the Irish defeated the Broncos 4-0 at the Eck Tennis Pavilion.
Last Time Out
Notre Dame advanced to the semifinal of the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship, held April 25-29 at Cary Tennis Park in Cary, North Carolina. The fourth-seeded Irish opened play with a 4-1 win over Georgia Tech in the quarterfinal round before falling to eventual conference champion Wake Forest in the semi. The Irish are 6-2 in their last eight matches.
All-ACC Honors
Two Irish starters were honored as part of the All-ACC teams released last week. Junior Alex Lebedev earned second-team accolades after leading the Irish atop the singles lineup this season, while freshman Richard Ciamarra claimed a spot on the third team after leading the team with 19 dual wins and climbing up the lineup to the No. 2 spot.
Grand Slam Streak
Junior Alex Lebedev will represent the Irish at the NCAA Singles Championship, marking the 13th straight season in which the Irish have sent a representative to the tournament. It also will mark the 16th consecutive ITA grand slam event in which the Irish have had at least one student-athlete compete in the main draw. ITA grand slam events include the All-American Championships, the National Indoor Championships (now the National Fall Championships) and the NCAA individual tournaments. The streak began with the 2013 NCAA Singles Championship when then-junior and current Irish assistant Greg Andrews advanced to the second round.
Rankings Rundown
The Irish came in at No. 25 in this week’s Oracle/ITA Division I Men’s National Team Rankings, up two spots from last week. Junior Alex Lebedev jumped three spots to No. 34, while senior Brendon Kempin and freshman Tristan McCormick moved up six spots to No. 49.
—
For the latest on all things Irish men’s tennis, follow @NDMensTennis on Twitter and ndmenstennis on Instagram and like Notre Dame Men’s Tennis on Facebook.
–ND–
Joanne Norell, athletics communications assistant director at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2014 and coordinates communications efforts for the Notre Dame men’s tennis and fencing programs, in addition to assisting with football communications and overseeing production of the football Gameday Magazine. Norell is a 2011 graduate of Purdue University and earned her master’s degree from Georgetown University in 2013.