March 26, 2015
Live Stats — Miami
Live Stats — Florida State
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — The University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team will swing through Florida for the first two of four road matches over the next two weeks, visiting Atlantic Coast Conference foes Miami on Friday and Florida State on Sunday.
The No. 37 Irish (10-7, 2-3 ACC) will face off with the Hurricanes (6-9, 0-4 ACC) at 2 p.m. EDT Friday at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center in Coral Gables, Florida, before heading back north to take on the No. 32 Seminoles (14-5, 3-2 ACC) at the Speicher Tennis Center in Tallahassee.
It will be the first half of the final road stretch for the Irish, who will head to North Carolina for matches with Duke and North Carolina the following week before retuning home for their final three regular season matches.
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IRISH NOTABLES
HURRICANE SEASON: The Irish dominated Miami in their first season in the ACC, notching a 7-0 win over the Hurricanes last year at the Courtney Tennis Center. The win brought the Irish even in the all-time series with the Hurricanes at 9-9. The teams first met in 1984, but didn’t see each other again for over a decade until the Irish picked up two wins in 1996, including in the BIG EAST Championship. The Irish and Hurricanes met in eight straight BIG EAST Championship finals from 1996 to 2003, though the final meeting was suspended due to rain and never played. In the matches in which a decision was reached, the Irish compiled a 3-4 record. The Irish and Hurricanes also shared the 1944 national title in a three-way tie that also included Texas.
This season, the Hurricanes are 6-9 and 0-4 in conference play this season. Their top-rated player, No. 77 Piotr Lomacki is 9-5 this season at the No. 1 singles spot.
SIZING UP THE SEMINOLES: The Irish defeated Florida State 6-1 last season on Senior Day at the Courtney Tennis Center last season to improve to 7-2 in the all-time series, but are likely to find a much improved Seminole squad on Sunday in Tallahassee. Florida State has compiled a 14-5 record this season and is 3-2 in ACC play, good for a No. 32 national ranking. The Seminoles boast two ranked singles players in No. 90 Michael Rinaldi and No. 106 Benjamin Lock, and a ranked doubles duo in Lock and Marco Nunez. Florida State is 10-1 at home this season, but 6-4 against opponents in the top 75.
RANKINGS UPDATE: In the latest ITA team poll (March 24) the Irish dropped a spot to No. 37 after a loss to then-No. 9 Virginia on March 20 and wins over Georgia Tech and IPFW on March 22.
A SINGULAR PERFORMER: In the latest ITA singles poll (March 24), junior Quentin Monaghan jumped five spots to No. 17. Monaghan notched his biggest win of the season March 20 when he downed then-No. 3 Ryan Shane of Virginia, 7-6(4), 6-3. For his efforts, Monaghan was named ACC Player of the Week on March 24. He has won six straight matches and is 14-2 in dual matches this season and 23-5 overall.
DOUBLES DOMINANCE: Doubles partners Billy Pecor and Alex Lawson are one of three ACC doubles duos to be ranked inside the ITA top 10 with a No. 9 ranking. After spending much of the season as the lone conference representative pair, Pecor and Lawson were joined this week by Virginia’s Luca Corinteli and Ryan Shane (No. 9) and Wake Forest’s Christian Seraphim and Skander Mansouri (No. 10). With teammates Eddy Covalschi and Josh Hagar at No. 22, the Irish are one of two programs in the country with two tandems ranked in the top 25, along with TCU (Nos. 18 and 19).
SCORING FORMAT CHANGE: The Atlantic Coast Conference has moved to re-implement the regular scoring format utilized in 2014. Earlier this season, matches were played with no-ad scoring, based on the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s recommendations for increasing pace of play. All conference matches will once again include an eight-game pro-set for the doubles point with a tiebreak at 7-7, and advantage scoring will be used. For men’s play, all doubles and singles matches will be played out unless agreed upon by both head coaches prior to the start of the match.
Joanne Norell, Media Relations Assistant
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