WACO, TX — No. 6 Baylor men’s tennis (17-2, 0-0 Big 12) will begin its quest for its 14th Big 12 regular season title when it hosts No. 9 TCU (15-3, 0-0 Big 12) Friday night at 6 p.m. CT at the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco.
Free t-shirts will be given to the first 250 fans in the stands with doubles slated to start the match.
The Bears will play their third top-10 opponent and 12th ranked foe of the season to open conference action. Baylor will look to defend its perfect 10-0 home record this season and an impressive 26-1 mark in the last 27 home matches.
Baylor comes into the match with three ranked singles players in No. 40 Johannes Schretter, No. 45 Matias Soto and No. 82 Will Little and the top-ranked doubles tandem in the country in Jimmy Bendeck and Sven Lah.
Meanwhile, the Horned Frogs also have three ranked singles players in No. 7 Alex Rybakov, No. 25 Alastair Gray and No. 115 Bertus Kruger. Kruger and Reese Stalder combine to be the No. 6-ranked doubles team in the latest ITA rankings.
TCU leads the all-time series, 34-25, but BU is 17-3 in its last 20 matches against the Horned Frogs dating back to 2002. Despite the dropping the regular season meeting in Ft. Worth last season, the Bears upset the top-seeded Frogs, 4-2, at the Big 12 Championship semifinals in Austin.
Sven Lah, Matias Soto, Will Little and Constantin Frantzen all captured singles win in the top-10 win.
After the matchup, the Bears will head south to face No. 4 Texas in Austin on Sunday. First serve is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. and will be live on the Longhorn Network.
