Tennessee (9-4) is looking to earn its 10th win of the season, opening conference action on the road at Auburn (10-2) for the first time since 2010. Live streaming and live stats for Thursday’s match at the Yarbrough Tennis Center can be found here.
LAST TIME OUT
Tennessee defeated The Citadel at home, 6-1, in its first outdoor match of the season last Friday.
SCOUTING AUBURN
Tennessee and Auburn meet for the 62nd time Thursday. UT leads 44-17 in the all-time series, which dates to 1960, and has won the past four matches against the Tigers. A win would give Tennessee a 1-0 start to SEC play for a third consecutive season.
In 2010, the last time Tennessee opened SEC play against Auburn, the Vols defeated the Tigers in a 7-0 sweep and finished the season at 31-2, reaching the NCAA Championship match before falling to USC, 4-2.
Last season, the Vols defeated Auburn in the regular season finale, 6-1. Three of Tennessee’s five singles victories in that win came in straight sets.
This year, Auburn’s only two losses both came at the ITA Kickoff Weekend, a pair of 4-0 losses to then-10th-ranked Wake Forest and then-19th-ranked Duke. The Tigers are 6-0 at home this season. At the Blue-Gray National Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Alabama, this past weekend, the Tigers picked up two top-25 wins, 4-0 over then-25th-ranked MTSU and 4-2 over then-14th-ranked Arizona.
VOLS IN THE RANKINGS
Singles
#14 – Johannus Monday
#65 – Emile Hudd
#125 – Shunsuke Mitsui
Doubles
#32 – Pat Harper/Johannus Monday
#41 – Emile Hudd/Shunsuke Mitsui
TIGERS IN THE RANKINGS
Singles
#103 – Tyler Stice
Doubles
#46 – Raul Dobai/Finn Murgett
JO MOMENTUM
• Two-time ITA Singles All-American Johannus Monday is a combined 17-2 in dual singles and doubles matches this spring. At 9-1 on the doubles courts and 8-1 in singles this spring, 11 of those 17 total wins are at the No. 1 lineup spot.
HISTORY IN SIGHT
• Graduate student Pat Harper, with 85 career overall doubles wins at Tennessee, is 10 wins away from cracking the top-10 on the program’s all-time doubles wins list. Should he reach 100 career doubles wins by season’s end, he will become just the ninth Vol to ever do so. Boris Kozlov, Martim Prata and Monday have each clinched one match each this…
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