SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Santa Clara men's tennis opens their dual match season at home against UC Davis on Thursday, playing for the first time since the 2020 spring season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first serve is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.

Due to current guidelines in Santa Clara County, spectators will not be permitted inside Degheri Tennis Center. In addition, only essential personnel is allowed on campus. The general public is allowed only to 'pass through' campus, such as on a walk, but no lingering, gathering, lounging, etc. is permitted.

All home matches will be live streamed.  Viewers can go to this link and follow the live action on each of the six courts.

Head coach Niall Angus begins his fifth season to lead the Broncos who return all eight players from last season's team that finished the year with a 5-7 record and add five newcomers.

Jesus Tapiador Barajas and Vasileios Iliopoulos return for their fifth season providing leadership and experience.  Santiago Hinojosa and Arthur Neuhaus, who were mainstays in both the singles and doubles lineups return for their junior campaigns while sophomores Ryan Ali, Nick Cmager, Matthew Rodriguez and Mann Shah round out the returning players.

Angus brought in five newcomers including graduate transfer Dominic Barretto from Cal where he compiled a 48-29 singles and 33-39 doubles record for the Bears in four seasons.

Along with Barretto, freshmen Guillaume Dalmasso from Aix en Provence, France along with local product, Raunak Sood from nearby Los Altos, California will look to challenge for a spot in the lineup.

Karlo Kranic, a transfer from Ole Miss, will sit out the 2021 spring season due to NCAA transfer rules and will have two seasons of eligibility starting in the fall.  Another transfer player, James Bell from the University of Louisville, will redshirt this season and compete in the fall with four years of eligibility remaining.

Tapiador Barajas, a two-time All-West Coast Conference Singles Honorable Mention selection, has an overall 59-45 singles and 47-45 doubles record in his first four seasons with the program.  The Madrid, Spain native played in the top two spots in the singles lineup throughout last spring.

Iliopoulos will look to pick up where he left off last season when he finished with seven straight singles wins en route to a team-high 11 singles victories.  The senior from Athens, Greece went 6-0 on court four and played atop the doubles lineup all season.

Neuhaus finished the 2020 season leading the team in overall doubles wins with 14 and tied for second in overall singles wins with nine.  Paired with Iliopoulos, he was  ranked No. 52 in the Oracle/ITA collegiate tennis Division I men's doubles rankings at the conclusion of the 2019 fall season.

Hinojosa primarily played out of the fifth spot in the singles lineup,  In doubles action, he paired up with Tapiador Barajas to post a 5-5 record playing either second or third in the lineup.

Shah joined the program in the spring of 2020 and immediately cracked the lineup, working himself up to the singles No. 2 spot and atop the doubles lineup playing alongside Iliopoulos before the season was canceled.

Cmager posted a 7-11 singles and 6-9 doubles record in his first season on the Mission Campus.  In singles action, Cmager played all but one match on court six going 3-6 last spring.

The Broncos last played March 11, 2020 before their final 10 matches were canceled.

Updates will be made to the website schedule as they become available.