Illinois men's tennis will host two top-five teams in #4 Baylor and #1 TCU this weekend as well as UIC men's tennis on Saturday. 

Against the Baylor Bears Illinois is 4-7 all-time with their last win coming 4-2 in 2016. Illinois is undefeated (8-0) all-time against the UIC Flames and look to continue the streak this weekend. TCU's last visit to Urbana was in 2018, the No. 9 Illini beat TCU 5-2. 

Last Time Out

Illinois split matches with Duke and Northern Kentucky on Saturday (Feb. 19) before defeating #22 UNC 4-2 on Sunday (Feb. 20). The Illini fell to Duke 4-2 but swept Northern Kentucky 5-0. Against UNC, Illinois dropped the doubles point but won four singles matches to defeat the Tar Heels. On Court 6, freshman Gabrielius Guzauskas clinched the match defeating Henry Lieberman 6-3,4-6,7-5.

In The Rankings

In the singles rankings, released Wed. (Feb. 23) graduate transfer Olivier Stuart ranked No. 108 and the doubles pairing of Hunter Heck and Lucas Horve moved up to No. 40, their highest so far this season.

Key Pieces Return

Alex Brown, Hunter Heck, Kweisi Kenyatte, and Siphosothando Montsi all return to the team in 2022. Brown was an All-American in 2020 and played doubles no. 1 and singles no. 2 for Illinois last season. Montsi, who reached the Sweet 16 last season in the singles tournament and was named and All-American after posting a 16-3 singles record during the season is back. Kenyatte missed the second half of the season with an injury but had a couple key wins for Illinois including in their season opening upset of No. 1 USC. After a successful freshman season where his comeback win 0-6, 6-3, 7-5 against JJ Tracy who had been undefeated until then gave Illinois a point in the Big Ten Championship.

New Faces

Last season fifth year seniors  Zeke Clark, Aleks Kovacevic, and Noe Khilf played big roles in the teams success. To fill the holes left but the graduated senior Brad Dancer and assistant coach Marcos Asse brought in four new Illini. The first was Mercer transfer Olivier Stuart who played four years at Mercer before sitting out last season and transferred to the Illini. Stuart is joined by freshmen Gabrielius Guzauskas, Will Mroz and Karlis Ozolins.

2021 B1G Champs

Illinois was the first Big Ten West Division Title winner last season. Following the regular season championship Illinois was a no. 1 seed in the Big Ten tournament. The defeated Indiana 4-0 before matching up against Michigan in the semifinals. Illinois battled back to defeated the Wolverines 4-2. In the finals they were up against OSU, who they lost two in the regular season. The match lasted over three hours and the Illinois came out with the 4-3 win.

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