With a share of the Big 12 Conference regular-season title on the line, No. 7 Texas will face No. 23 Texas A&M on Saturday in the State Farm Lone Star Showdown. The match will begin at 4 p.m. at the Penick-Allison Tennis Center in Austin. Texas' senior class will be honored in ceremonies before the match at approximately 3:50 p.m., or will be pushed back accordingly depending on the conclusion of the Texas-Baylor women's tennis match that will be played beforehand.
The winner of Saturday's match will be awarded one point in the State Farm Lone Star Showdown standings. The Aggies currently hold the lead by a 7.0-5.5 margin. Texas has won the men's tennis point in two of the last three Showdown matches.
Earlier this season, the Longhorns defeated the Aggies 4-0 in the renewal of the Texas Cup, a series of annual, neutral-stie non-conference matches held in Houston on Feb. 8 at The Downtown Club at The Met.
Texas enters Saturday's showdown boasting an 18-4 overall record and 4-1 in the Big 12. The Aggies hold an 11-9 mark and are 2-3 in league play.
Coming off of a key victory against Baylor on Wednesday in Waco, where the Longhorns defeated the Bears 4-3 on their home court for the first time in the regular season since 1999, the Longhorns will be hunting for a win on Saturday that would make them the top seed and earn a first-round bye in next week's Big 12 Championship in College Station.
The Longhorns will be lead by 17th-ranked sophomore Dimitar Kutrovsky, who holds an impressive 26-9 singles record, five of those wins coming against top-25 singles opponents in the past six weeks.
Kutrovsky is poised to rise even higher in the ITA singles rankings after his win over Baylor's eighth-ranked Lars Poerschke on Wednesday, and will hope to make his second consecutive appearance in the 64-player singles bracket at the NCAA Championship.
Also of note on the Texas roster are freshmen Kellen Damico and Ed Corrie. Damico claimed the singles titles at the HEB Baylor Fall Invitational and the Racquet Club Collegiate Invitational earlier this season, while Corrie won the Texas Invitational in November. The two freshmen are also ranked sixth in the latest release of the ITA doubles rankings, while Damico and Kutrovsky have both been named Big 12 Conference Men's Tennis Player of the Week twice this season.
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