Colorado University Athletics
Men's Tennis Set To Open Season
Jan. 28, 2003
BOULDER - The Colorado men's tennis team begins its 2003 spring season on the road against a pair of nationally ranked teams starting this weekend in the southern United States. Colorado, ranked No. 62 in the preseason Omni Hotels Tennis top-75 rankings, travel to No. 15 Auburn (Friday, Jan. 31) and No. 39 South Alabama (Sunday, Feb. 2).
CU is one of six Big 12 Conference schools ranked in the preseason poll. The highest on the conference schools is Baylor, ranked No. 3, which will be the Buffaloes first match of the home season, Saturday, Feb. 8 at Boulder Country Club beginning at 3 p.m.
Other Big 12 teams on the schedule include at Texas (No. 12), at Texas A&M (13th); and home tilts with Texas Tech (Feb. 23, 56th), and Oklahoma State (Apr. 20, 63rd). Other home matches are Louisiana-Lafayette (Mar. 17) and Oklahoma (Apr. 19).
The Buffs also embark on a demanding non-conference slate away from Boulder with match ups against Virginia Commonwealth (No. 16), South Florida (21st), Rice (36th), William and Mary (52nd), and Central Florida (54th). The H-E-B Tournament in Corpus Christi, Texas will feature strong competition from the 11-team field, along with Wichita State, Nebraska, and Denver rounding out the schedule.
"My goals and the goals of the team are to become a top-10 team," said first-year head coach Sam Winterbotham. "To be the best, you have to start playing against the best teams around. If you don't play them, you don't know how good you are."
The Buffaloes return three seniors from last season's 12-11 team that finished 56th nationally, Francois Dallain (Montreal, Canada), Maciej Dilaj (Gdansk, Poland) and Justin Hunter (Southlake, Texas). The lone junior is Paul Mink (Carrollton, Texas) along with first-year players, Evan Dixon (Eugene, Ore.) and Jon Magnes (Short Hills, N.J.). Freshmen include local Boulder resident, Chad Tsuda, Marko Bundalo (Pancevo, Yugoslavia), and Patrick Sadovnik (Klagenfurt, Austria).