SOUTH BEND, Ind. – After their last three matches were postponed, the University of Notre Dame Men’s Tennis team will return to the courts this weekend as they play in the ITA Kickoff Weekend. The Irish will be in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where they will play Southern Methodist University on Friday at 2 p.m. The other match will see host Wake Forest take on Michigan with the respective winners and losers playing each other in a second match on Saturday.
On the line is a trip to the ITA National Men’s Team Indoors for the team that wins both matches where they will join winners from 14 other sites at host school Washington in February.
The Irish have advanced to National Indoors three times in Coach Sachire’s tenure as head coach. The most recent trip was in the spring of 2019 after defeating Vanderbilt and host Oklahoma. They also advanced in 2018 and 2014.
Last Time Out
The team opened up the season two weeks ago with two sweeps of Atlantic 10 conference member Saint Louis. Irish veteran juniors Matthew Che and Connor Fu both returned to the court as starters along with sophomore Jean-Marc Malkowski to tally singles victories for the Irish. Four players saw their first dual action in the blue and gold as graduate students Aditya Vashistha and Peter Conklin joined freshmen Brian Bilsey and Jameson Corsillo picking up wins along the way.