Posted: Jun 06, 2019
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – By finishing No. 67 in the final 2019 Oracle/ITA Division I Men's Tennis team rankings, Santa Clara men's tennis will play in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Kick-Off Weekend to start its 2020 spring season.
Teams that finished the 2019 season ranked in the top-90 have the opportunity to partake in the 12th annual National Team Indoor Championships tournament.
"This is the first time since 2013 that we've made the ITA Kick-Off Weekend which really shows the progression the program has made over the last four years. This event will give us an opportunity to play some of the best teams in one of the two biggest tournaments in the country along with the National Outdoors," said Broncos head coach Niall Angus. "Being included in a National Championship tournament and having a legitimate opportunity to test ourselves against the best players will be a great experience and a testament to what we did last season."
The first two rounds of the tournament will take place January 24-27, 2020 at 26 different facilities across the country. During the weekend, 60 teams will travel to 15 host sites to participate. Each of the 15 regional host institutions will welcome three other teams for a single-elimination event, with the winners advancing to the National Team Indoors, hosted by the University of Wisconsin.
The ITA Kick-Off Weekend is unique in college athletics in that each regional is determined via the Kick-Off Weekend Draft, where each team selects which regional they wish to participate in. Selections are made in order of the final 2018-2019 Oracle/ITA Collegiate Tennis Rankings.
On Thursday, Angus selected the USC regional in Los Angeles.
"As the number three seed in the regional, we will open up against the second-seed UC Santa Barbara. It will be a great opportunity to play against a ranked team," said Angus of the Gauchos, which finished No. 38 in the final polls. "And the other two teams in the regional (No. 8 USC and No. 80 UNC Wilmington) are teams we don't get to play against so it's a fresh look to our schedule."