Clemson In Action at William & Mary Invitational This Weekend

Jan. 29, 2009

CLEMSON, SC – The Clemson men’s tennis team will participate in the William & Mary Men’s Tennis Indoor Invitational on Friday and Saturday at the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center in Williamsburg, VA.

Other teams that will participate include 64th-ranked William & Mary, 70th-ranked BYU, and Elon in the two-day event.

The opening round of the tournament will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 30. In the first round, Clemson will meet Elon and William and Mary will face BYU at the same time. The consolation and championship matches are slated for Saturday, Jan. 31, at 4:30 p.m.

Clemson is 1-1 on the season, following a 7-0 loss to No. 3 Georgia on Tuesday. The Tigers opened the season with a 7-0 win over The Citadel. Two Clemson players are ranked in the Mideast region singles standings. Gera Boryachinsky is ranked No. 19 and Carlos Alvarez is ranked 20th in the region.

William & Mary is now 7-2 on the season with a doubleheader sweep of instate foes Richmond and Longwood on Jan. 25. It is the best start to a season for the Tribe since the 2002 campaign.

BYU enters the competition with a 3-1 ledger after upsetting No. 63 UC-Irvine on the road, 4-3, on Jan. 24. The Cougars also own victories over Utah State and Weber State, while its lone loss came at No. 4 UCLA.

Elon dropped its season opener, 7-0, to No. 35-ranked Duke.

Clemson and William & Mary have met on four occasions with the Tigers holding a 3-1 advantage in the series.

The Tigers and BYU have only met one previous time and that was during the 1980 season. The Tigers won on February 15, 1980, 5-4. This meeting was a battle of top 20 teams as Clemson was ranked 14th and BYU was ranked 19th that day.

This will be the third meeting between Clemson and Elon on the tennis courts. Clemson leads the series 2-0. The Tigers first met Elon on April 18, 1940. The Tigers won the match 6-1 at Clemson. The two teams met again, 67 years later in the NCAA Tournament’s first round on May 11, 2007 and the Tigers won 4-0 in Winston-Salem, NC.

The 2009 season marks the 100th year of men’s tennis at Tigertown. Clemson first sponsored men’s tennis in 1910 when two Tiger tennis players entered the annual state tournament. The first dual match was played in the 1921 season as the Tigers defeated Wofford 2-0 on April 28 that season, in Spartanburg, SC.

Also the 2009 season marks the first year for Clemson Head Coach Chuck McCuen. McCuen has been an assistant at Clemson for the past six years. He is only the seventh head Coach in the history of the program.