Men’s Tennis Heads to Norman for ITA Kickoff Weekend

Saturday, January 25

Norman, Okla.

1:00 p.m.

Tulsa

Oklahoma

Photo by: Joshua Rogers

Men’s Tennis Heads to Norman for ITA Kickoff Weekend

1/23/2025 3:59:00 PM | Men's Tennis

TULSA, Okla. —The 2-1 Tulsa men's tennis squad will head west to the University of Oklahoma to partake in the 17^th Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Kickoff Weekend this Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 25-26. It's the 15^th appearance by the Golden Hurricane men in the annual tournament.

Streaming: Oklahoma PlaySight
Live Stats: Oklahoma StatBroadcast

ITA Kickoff Weekend

ITA Kickoff Weekend is the first major college tennis event of the spring season and serves as an early-season test for teams who will take on programs they might not typically face in the regular season.
The event features 56 of the best men's teams from across the country competing in 14 different four-team brackets. The hosting schools are all national top-25 programs and the draws for ITA Kickoff were selected in the summer of 2024.
The winner of each pod will advance to the ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championship, slated for Feb. 14-18, at SMU and Baylor.
Tulsa will compete in a pod that includes the hosting eighth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners (3-0), No. 18 Stanford (1-1) and Oregon (1-0).
As the No. 4 seed, TU will play the No. 1-seeded Sooners at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24, and will face either Stanford or Oregon in a championship or consolation dual match on Saturday, Jan. 25.

Scouting Oklahoma

Saturday will be the 10^th meeting in the last decade between Tulsa and Oklahoma in a series that dates back to as early as 1977.
Oklahoma has won nine of the last 10 matchups. TU's last win came in a 6-1 decision in Tulsa on March 13, 2022.
The Sooners won last year's meeting 5-2 in Tulsa.
In the latest ITA Team Rankings, Oklahoma is No. 8 in the nation.
Two ranked singles players headline the lineup for OU, including No. 62 Luis Alvarez and No. 73 Oscar Lacides. Both players have 11 wins this school year.
Lacides and Bruno Nhavene are the 100^th-ranked pair in the nation with a 9-1 record together.

Komagata's Clinch at Arkansas Named UTR Sports Clinch of the Week

Junior transfer Reiya Komagata shined in his dual match debut for the Hurricane.
He capped the Hurricane's 4-3 comeback win from down 0-3 at Arkansas after putting together a three-set winner at Singles No. 5.
All matches in the dual finished in two sets. The pressure never got to Komagata as all eyes were on him to deliver the match-winning point.
For his heroics, UTR Sports gave him Clinch of the Week honors to go with his AAC Men's Tennis Player of the Week award, his first.

Felipe Miguel has Strong Opening Weekend

Another junior transfer for Tulsa has seen early success in the dual match season.
Junior Luis Felipe Miguel had the best showing among all TU players after three matches in the opening weekend.
He went 2-0 in doubles with victories against Omaha and Cornell and followed with a clutch 6-2, 7-5 win during Tulsa's furious comeback down 3-0 at Arkansas.

On the Roster

Among the 11-member roster, Tulsa features six returning letterwinners and welcomed five newcomers for the 2024-25 season.
Returning from last year's championship squad are redshirt freshman Calum Jestin, redshirt junior Will Pellegrini, junior Timothy Carlsson Seger, redshirt sophomore Gus Tettamble, sophomore Victor Tosetto and American Athletic Conference individual champion Alex Okonkwo, a sophomore.
The three newcomers are freshmen Adam Bojkovic (Randolph, N.J.), Connor Doig (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Nikola Puntaric (Ljubljana, Slovenia). They are joined by junior transfers Reiya Komagata (Cowley College) and Luis Felipe Miguel (Liberty).