HOUSTON — The UTSA men’s tennis team put in championship-worthy performances to open action at the American Athletic Conference Individual Championships on Thursday at Rice’s George R. Brown Tennis Center. The Roadrunners moved their doubles pair of Tiago Torres and Miguel Alonso to the next round, while Torres and Danijal Muminovic delivered in singles play as well, advancing to Friday’s quarterfinal.
It's been a big month already for the tandem of Torres (Senior/Lisbon, Portugal) and Alonso (Senior/Veracruz, Mexico), coming into the week fresh off an Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Texas Regional semifinal appearance. The duo continued their strong play with tournament-opening 8-4 win over South Florida's Hugo Car and Fransisco Llanes. The pair moves on to face No. 2 seed Arthus de la Bassetiere and Kabeer Kapasi from Rice – the nation’s 57th-ranked doubles – at 10 a.m. on Friday.
At the adjacent women’s AAC Championships, UTSA’s Ekua Youri also knocked off her bracket’s top seed to move to the quarters.
Starting with the Round of 32, Muminovic (Senior/Tulza, Bosnia) downed Rice’s Emir Sendogan on his own court, 6-3, 6-4, earning a prime-time slot in the Round of 16 against No. 1 overall seed Pablo Alemany from Memphis. In the afternoon R16, Muminovic battled his way back from a close 7-5 setback in the opening set, to reel off back-to-back 6-3 and 6-4 wins – defeating the nation’s 27th-ranked player in Alemany and earning his spot in the quarterfinal. Muminovic is set to meet No. 8 John Bernard from Florida Atlantic at 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
The second seed in the field and coming in ranked No. 119, Torres made the advancing group a trio as he put away Florida Atlantic's Jiri Jenicek in a 6-4, 6-2 result. His quarterfinal matchup is set with Tulane’s Luka Petrovic, also at 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
To follow along with the action at the AAC Individual Championships, Rice Athletics provides live stats and on-court video through the results site, here. For full information on the tournament, please visit the AAC’s 2024 Individual Tennis Championship Central.
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