Columbia University Team Page
NEW YORK – The Dick Savitt Tennis Center will serve as one of 15 hosts for the ITA Kick-Off Weekend when the No. 16 Columbia men will welcome No. 14 Virginia Tech, No. 18 Stanford and No. 22 Minnesota on Saturday and Sunday.
The Hokies and the Cardinal will compete in Saturday’s first match at 10 am, followed by a 2 pm match with the Lions and the Gophers. On Sunday, the losers of the two matches will face off at 10 am, with a 2 pm match for the two Saturday victors.
The team that makes it out of the weekend with two wins will be one of 15 schools that advance to the 2016 ITA National Men’s Team Indoor Championship, hosted by Virginia from Feb. 12-15.
Columbia earns the chance to host this weekend after back-to-back seasons in which the team not only won the Ivy League Championship, but also advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16. The weekend will provide some stiff competition, as all three teams had successful 2015 spring seasons.
Minnesota was an NCAA Tournament team a year ago, defeating Princeton in the first round of the tournament, before a match with the eventual national champion, Virginia, in the second round. The Gophers are 2-0 this spring, knocking off South Dakota State (7-0) and DePaul (7-0) in the early going.
Virginia Tech has seen the court once this spring, defeating Alabama by a 5-2 score. In 2015, the Hokies topped East Tennessee State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, before falling to South Florida in the second round.
Stanford had a similar run in the NCAA Tournament to both Virginia Tech and Minnesota last season, winning a first round match against Tennessee, before falling to Duke. The Cardinal come in after competing in their home Sherwood Cup this past weekend, and having played both Sacramento State (W, 4-0) and UC Davis (W, 4-0) on Jan. 20.
