With the rankings released Tuesday, the Texas Tech men's tennis team is at No. 30, giving the Red Raiders momentum heading into this weekend's match.
Along with the new ranking, the Tech men have another reason to celebrate after their championship win at the H.E.B Invitational. The Red Raiders defeated three ranked teams: No. 62 Middle Tennessee State, No. 58 New Mexico and No. 62 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, the tournament host. The Red Raiders entered last weekend No. 39 in the nation before the new ranking was released.
"Leading up to that particular tournament, we were 8-1 and beat a couple of good ranked teams including San Diego and New Mexico," Tech coach Tim Siegel said. "Lost a very tough 4-3 match to TCU. (The H.E.B. Invitational) is a tournament where it seems like we've always done well. We either won the tournament or made finals, I believe, like five or six years in a row. It's tough. We've always kinda done the same thing. It's one of those things where it's a grueling, tough deal because you play two matches in the first day."
It seems the Red Raiders have everything working in the right places, but Siegel said there still are holes to fill.
The Red Raiders are solid at most of their singles positions, including the No. 1, No. 2, No. 5 and No. 6 positions.
Most notable in singles for Tech is Bojan Szumanski at No. 1 with an 10-1 record. Michael Breler sits at the No. 6 position with an 11-0 record.
Siegel said these positions cannot hold for the rest of the season, as it is vital to the team to get production from all six singles positions.
"I definitely feel like this team has the capabilities to be a Sweet 16 team," Siegel said. "We can't expect our No. 1 and our No. 2 to go through the season with one or three losses. We've got to get production. I always tell the guys that the magic number is six. What I mean by that is we have to have six guys play with everything they've got."
All of the Red Raiders' matches at the H.E.B Invitational were close and competitive.
The Tech men pulled out the Middle Tennessee State and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi matches 4-2. They met New Mexico for the second time this season, pulling out a 4-1 victory.
"It was a great weekend for us," Szumanski said. "We had three really tough matches. It was just really good to come through. All of them really close, especially the first match and the final, were really close. We were just happy to come through and win those matches."
The Red Raiders are 11-1 on the season, but Szumanski said there is another start to the season that trumps this one.
"We're having a good start," he said. "My second year we were 17-0, so that's not the best start, but it's definitely up there. Even though it's not the best one, I feel like it could be the best season we ever had, because everything's just been working well. I think we're getting better from each match to another."
The duo of Szumanski and Christian Rojmar won one match last weekend, still sitting as the No. 2 doubles team in the nation. It was the only doubles match they played.
Szumanski is not only doing well in doubles play.
The senior, ranked No. 35 in singles play after the new rankings were released, won all of his singles matches in the H.E.B Invitational.
Sinisa Markovic, Lenoir Ramos, Breler and Rojmar joined Szumanski in winning all their matches this weekend.
The Red Raiders will make a short return to Lubbock to face No. 37 Denver at noon Saturday at the McLeod Tennis Complex.
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