Friday, 03/22/2013

NOTRE DAME, Ind. - The No. 27 University of Notre Dame men's tennis team heads to Williamsburg, Va., this weekend for a 10 a.m. Saturday matchup with the William  & Mary Tribe.

The Irish (10-7) are coming off an impressive showing Wednesday night against No. 3 USC at Eck Tennis Pavilion. Despite losing 6-1, Notre Dame took four matches to three sets, including No. 96 Greg Andrews, who came within two points of downing No. 2 Emilio Gomez in a third set superset (7-6 (4), 3-6, 1-0 (10-8)) at one. Junior Ryan Bandy had the lone Irish victory as he topped No. 90 Jonny Wang, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, for his first career ranked singles win.     

William & Mary (7-12) has played a tough 2013 spring schedule, losing nine times to opponents ranked in the ITA top-75. The Tribe participated in last weekend's Blue Gray National Tennis Classic like the Irish, falling to ranked foes Cornell and Columbia before taking down Troy, 4-1. The Tribe boasts one ranked singles player in No. 119 Ben Guthrie.

The two squads met in the fall as Notre Dame participated in the Tribe Invitational to wrap up the fall. For the weekend the Irish won 10 of 15 doubles contests and 20 of 26 singles matches against the Tribe, Harvard and Old Dominion. For their efforts Andrews, Blas Moros and Quentin Monaghan were named to the all-tournament team for singles and Andrews and Spencer Talmadge received similar honors for doubles.

Fans can follow Saturday's match between the Tribe and Irish through the live stats link on UND.com. 

Notre Dame has owned the BIG EAST Men's Tennis Player of the Week award this spring season, winning seven of the nine awards the league office has announced ... junior Greg Andrews has won three times, fellow junior Billy Pecor has won twice and senior Blas Moros and freshman Quentin Monaghan has won once each.

The victory over Cornell at the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic gave the Irish six wins over teams ranked that are in the March 19 ITA poll - No. 19 Illinois, No. 31 Michigan, No. 33 Cornell, No. 44 Memphis, No. 53 Michigan State and No. 64 Wisconsin.

All of Notre Dame's seven losses this season are to teams ranked in the top 50 of this week's ITA poll, including six teams in the top 25 ... the losses were to No. 3 USC, No. 4 Kentucky, No. 5 Ohio State, No. 8 Duke, No. 22 Northwestern, No. 23 Harvard and No. 46 Boise State ... four of the six losses have come in 4-3 setbacks.

Notre Dame is 3-5 when losing the doubles point ... all three wins have come over talented foes - Michigan, Wisconsin and Cornell ... the Irish are 7-2 when winning the doubles point ... the two losses came at Kentucky and to Boise State.