Senior co-captain Brent D'Amico provided the clinching victory and became the first ND player ever to conclude his four-year career without having seen his team lose a BIG EAST tournament match.

Notre Dame Announces 2004-05 Schedule, Will Open Season This Weekend With Tom Fallon Invitational

Sept. 13, 2004

2004-05 Notre Dame Men’s Tennis Schedule in PDF Format
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The University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team will open its 2004-05 season this weekend by playing host to its lone home fall tournament, the Tom Fallon Invitational, from Thursday through Sunday. The Irish will have a busy fall slate and then will take on eight teams – including four that earned top-11 seeds – that garnered berths in last year’s NCAA tournament during the spring dual-match season.

The Tom Fallon Invitational will feature six teams – Army, Drake, Maryland, Purdue, William & Mary in addition to the Irish – playing “hidden dual” matches at the Courtney Tennis Center and, possibly, in the Eck Tennis Pavilion. Action begins on Thursday at 4 p.m. (EST), as the Irish and the Tribe will play both singles and doubles contests. The tournament will begin at 9 a.m. on the next three days.

Following the season-opening tournament, Notre Dame will be off for nearly a month before concluding the fall by participating in six tournaments in a four-week span. The Irish will first split up to play in both the Midland Invitational (Oct. 14-17) in Midland, Texas, and the Wolverine Invitational (Oct. 15-17) in Ann Arbor, Mich. Those will serve as tune-ups for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Midwest Championships, also held in Ann Arbor, slated for Oct. 21-26. Notre Dame will head to the Crimson Tide Fall Championships in Tuscaloosa, Ala., from Oct. 29-31 to take part in a tournament hosted by former Irish assistant and current Alabama head coach Billy Pate. The first weekend of November will be the final weekend of fall competition, as the Irish head to the Milwaukee Tennis Classic from Nov. 3-8. A few of Notre Dame’s top competitors may play in the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships in Ann Arbor from Nov. 4-7.

Ten of the first 11 matches of the spring season will be played in the Eck Tennis Pavilion, kicking off a 14-match home slate. The dual-match portion of the campaign will begin on Jan. 15 with a doubleheader, as the Irish play host to both Toledo and Illinois State. Among the other highlights of the home schedule are visits by three teams that ended last season in the top 20 of the national rankings: North Carolina (Jan. 29, #17 in final 2003-04 rankings), Duke (Feb. 4, #9), and Midwest region rival and ’04 national semifinalist Illinois (March 17, #2).

The Irish also will have a number of difficult road trips, including matches at Virginia (Feb. 26), which ended last season ranked 10th, and at Ohio State (Feb. 20), a regional rival that ended up 12th after reaching the NCAA quarterfinals in 2004.

Notre Dame will face six teams it did not take on last spring: Toledo, North Carolina, Texas (Feb. 6, home), Indianapolis (Feb. 13, home, first-ever meeting), Marquette (Feb. 13, home), and Virginia.

The 2005 event will mark the 15th consecutive year the Irish have participated in the Blue-Gray National Tennis Classic, one of the nation’s most prestigious in-season tournaments, set for March 10-13 in Montgomery, Ala. The previous week, Notre Dame will travel to La Jolla, Calif., for the Pacific Coast Doubles tournament, from March 3-6.

The Irish will attempt to defend their title at the BIG EAST Championship, slated for April 21-23 in Tampa, Fla. Notre Dame has reached the final in each of its nine years of participating in the league, winning the championship four times.

The 2004 NCAA tournament starts with first- and second-round action on campus sites May 13-15 before culminating with the final four rounds May 21-24 in College Station, Texas. That also will be the site of the season-ending NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships, scheduled for May 25-30.

In all, Notre Dame will play 13 teams that finished 2004 in the national top 65. The Irish also will face the challenge of being on the road for nearly a month stretch in midseason (Feb. 18-March 17) and playing just three home matches after Feb. 18.

Notre Dame returns six of its top eight players from last year’s squad that finished 15-9, claimed the BIG EAST title despite being the No. 3 seed, and gained a bid to the NCAA tournament for the 13th time in 14 years, losing to #19 Tulane in the opening round. The Irish finished 33rd in the national rankings.