Men’s Tennis Splitting Tournaments This Weekend

Friday, September 30

Murfreesboro, Tenn.

All Day

University of Memphis

MTSU Shootout

Photo by: Joe Murphy

Sep 29, 2016 | Men's Tennis

Tigers split between Murfreesboro and Tulsa this weekend.

By: Tammy DeGroff

MEMPHIS – The University of Memphis men's tennis team will split tournaments this weekend. Four members of the team will go to Murfreesboro to participate in the Coach Dick LaLance 4-Man Showcase, while six other players will begin play in the ITA All-American.

Shakeel Manji, Jan Pallares Monreal, Matt Story and Turner Voges will play in the Middle Tennessee tournament, accompany Coach Paul Goebel back to his alma mater. The quartet will open play Friday against opponents from Lipscomb at 10 a.m., then will face players from host Middle Tennessee, Saturday. Memphis will close the event against a lineup of players from Belmont on Sunday. There will be two doubles matches and four singles matches in each team's match-ups.

While that part of the roster is in Murfreesboro, a pair of Tigers will head to Tulsa this weekend to start their runs in the ITA All-American in the prequalifying draw. Sophomores Chris Patzanovsky and Felix Rauch will participate in the pre-qualifying draw and are hoping to win their way to the qualifying draw, where teammates Kai Lemke, Ryan Peniston and Andrew Watson will start their respective ITA draws on Tuesday.

This will be the second consecutive weekend that men's tennis is on the road to start the fall campaign. The Tigers sent a lineup to Alabama last weekend for the Four-in-the-Fall tournament.

After the ITA qualifying draw has played out, another set of Memphis players will travel to Notre Dame next weekend to participate in the Notre Dame/Bobby Bayliss Invitational.