Men’s Tennis Adds Pair of Academic Awards Over Summer

Photo by: UofM Athletic Media Relations

Men’s Tennis Adds Pair of Academic Awards Over Summer

Jul 29, 2016 | Men's Tennis

Tigers post highest GPA in American Athletic Conference men's tennis and have four individuals named ITA Scholar Athletes.

By: Tammy DeGroff

MEMPHIS – The University of Memphis men's tennis program, who advanced to the NCAA tournament this past spring for the fourth time in five seasons, added a pair off off-the-court honors on Friday. The team was named an ITA All-Academic team last week for the ninth time in 11 seasons for having a team GPA of 3.0 or higher during the year. Earlier this week, the Tigers were honored by The American for having the highest men's tennis team GPA in the conference this past year.

The Tigers, who capped the year ranked number 40 in the final Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) polls, went 14-10 last season against a schedule that included 18 ranked opponents, including road matches at #6 Georgia, #10 Oklahoma, #19 Ole Miss, #27 Vanderbilt and #32 Harvard. Memphis picked up road wins against ranked opponents at Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, SMU and Middle Tennessee in the regular season.

Memphis returns six letter winners from last year's squad, led by juniors Andrew Watson and Ryan Peniston. Both Watson and Peniston finished the year in the national singles rankings and will likely start their junior campaigns in the preseason rankings when they are released in September. Watson capped his sophomore season at #81, while Peniston finished at #89.

In addition to Watson and Peniston, the junior class will also feature Kai Lemke and Shakeel Manji, while the sophomore class will include Chris Patzanovsky and Felix Rauch, who both saw extensive playing time as freshmen last year. Memphis will also have Matthew Story and Turner Voges back in the fold. Both players redshirt this past season and will be redshirt freshmen this year.

That freshman class will also include signee Jan Pallares Monreal, the number five ranked junior out of Spain. Pallares Monreal won an ITF Futures doubles title in Spain back in May. That, combined with his junior results, has given him a Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) of 13 at the end of July. UTR is a number between 1.00 and 16.50 indicating a player's average level of play over his or her last 30 matches over the past 12 months. The system was created to create a more universal ranking system to identify and group players of similar levels together in competitions.

Memphis also had four players grab academic honors this off-season. Louis Asser, Chris Patzanovsky, Ryan Peniston and Felix Rauch all were named ITA Scholar-Athletes for having a GPA of 3.5 or higher during the past year. Asser will be the one loss for Memphis heading in to the 2016-17 season. He is currently completing his internship and will graduate from Memphis (in three years) later this summer. The four ITA individual awards was the most for the Tigers since the 2011 team had six honorees.