May 4, 2006

Three Conference USA men's tennis programs prepare for the 2006 NCAA Tournament, the Division I Men's Tennis Subcommittee announced on Wednesday evening. Rice and SMU receive two selection bids, while Tulsa earned the league's automatic bid after capturing the 2006 C-USA Men's Tennis Championship crown.

First- and second-round competition will be conducted Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Sunday, May 12-13 or 13-14, with the winner of each site advancing to the NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships at the Taube Tennis Center in Stanford, California, hosted by the Stanford University. The team championship will be held May 20-23.

Tulsa will play Middle Tennessee State in a first round match-up on Saturday, May 13, at the Baylor Tennis Center in Waco, Texas. The Golden Hurricane, which will be making its eighth NCAA Tournament appearance, boasts a 17-11 mark this season, the best record since Tulsa tallied a 17-9 mark during the 1996-97 season.

Leading the way for the Golden Hurricane is sophomore-transfer, seventh-ranked Arnau Brugues. Brugues, the C-USA Men's Tennis Player of the Year and all-conference first-team selection, has registered a 16-1 mark this year, including an 8-0 record against ranked opponents. He became the highest-ranked played in school history when he received a No. 6 Intercollegiate Tennis Association ranking on March 21st.

SMU earned its 10th straight bid to participate in the NCAA Division I Regionals. In his 13-year tenure at SMU, head coach Carl Neufeld has taken the Mustangs to 10 straight appearances.

The 37th-ranked Mustangs will head to Kentucky to face the 27th-ranked Louisville, who earned the Big East automatic bid by upsetting Notre Dame and claiming the league title. The winner of the Mustang and Cardinal match-up will advance to the next round and take on the winner of Western Illinois and Illinois.

The Mustangs are in the record books as SMU boosts a top 10 ranking in the number of all-time appearances in the Championship. Behind Georgia, Stanford and UCLA, SMU ranks fourth overall in all-time winning percentage at NCAA, while posting seven top four finishes at NCAA which notches fifth place overall in the all-time category.

Rice concludes the Conference USA NCAA men's tennis representation as the Owls received a bid to the NCAA championships for the fourth-straight year and face Louisiana-Lafayette in first-round action on May 13 in Austin, Texas.

The Owls are 18-7 this year and received an at-large bid after finishing second in Conference USA and ranking 29th nationally. The bid is also the program's fifth in the last six years. During the course of the season, Rice took on 11 teams that earned bids to the championship, including first- and second-round host Texas.

Seniors Tony Haerle and Robert Searle lead Rice this season as the pair is ranked 18th nationally with their 13-5 record at the No. 1 singles position. Searle also ranks 28th in singles with his 27-11 overall record, 16-6 in dual action.

The Owls upset the third-ranked Longhorns on April 12 in a 5-2 victory at the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. The two teams also faced off in the second round of the NCAA championships in Austin in 2003, when Texas held on for a 4-3 win to advance. Additionally, Texas eliminated Rice from the NCAA championships in 2005 with a 4-3 first-round decision in Waco.

The teams will play a single-elimination tournament at 16 first- and second-round sites (four teams at each site) and the finals site (16-team bracket) to determine the national champion.

The matches shall be regulation dual matches with three (3) eight-game, pro-set doubles played for one team point, followed by six (6) singles matches, each valued at one team point, played best of three sets. Regular scoring will be used and a 12-point tiebreaker will be played at eight games all in doubles and at six games all in singles.