Men's Tennis Hosts Utah Invitational To Open Fall Play

Friday, October 11

Salt Lake City, UT

TBD

University of Utah

Utah Invitational

Men's tennis team picture for the 2019-20 season

Photo by: Steve C. Wilson

Men's Tennis Hosts Utah Invitational To Open Fall Play

10/10/2019 8:41 AM | Men's Tennis

FIRST SERVE
The Utah men's tennis team will get its first action of the fall this Friday through Sunday, Oct. 11-13, when the Utes host the Utah Invitational. Utah's home event will be the first of three fall tournaments for the team to prep for the spring season. The three-day event will be held at the Eccles Tennis Center in Salt Lake City.

TOURNAMENT TALK
Utah will welcome two programs to the George S. Eccles Tennis Center to participate in the home event. Southern Utah and Montana State will send athletes to compete in the round-robin tournament. Student-athletes will be divided in four groups for singles play, while there are two groups of doubles teams.

Competition will begin every day with doubles matches at 9 a.m. MT, while singles play will follow. Results will be uploaded following the day's action to UtahUtes.com.

Utah will have six members of this year's squad compete in the fall opener. Russell Benkaim, Mathias Gavelin, Paul McCallie, and Azat Hankuliyev will see action this weekend, while freshmen Rafael Grovas and Rian Ta will make their Ute debuts.

SENIORS STEPPING UP
Slava Shainyan and Azat Hankuliyev will look to lead this year's squad as the two seniors on the 2019-20 roster. Shainyan spent the majority of his junior campaign as Utah's No. 3 singles player and went 11-10 in singles dual play. Shainyan also held a 10-13 doubles record, primarily playing on court one. He picked up doubles wins over Stanford's top duo, 6-3, and the No. 17-ranked doubles team from Cal, 6-3. Shainyan is also a three-time ITA Scholar-Athlete selection and two-time first-team Pac-12 All-Academic selection.

Hankuliyev mainly played doubles last season for Utah as a member of the No. 2 duo. Hankuliyev finished doubles with a 10-8 dual play record, while tabbing a 7-6 record on court two. Hankuliyev and his partner beat the No. 2 doubles team from No. 40 Old Dominion, as well as tabbing back-to-back wins over Washington (6-3) and No. 31 Oregon (6-3). The Salt Lake City native finished his junior campaign with a 3-3 record in singles.

UTE RETURNERS
Along with Utah's two seniors, the men's tennis team returns four student-athletes from last season. The four other returners are juniors Russell Benkaim and Randy Cory, and sophomores Mathias Gavelin and Paul McCallie. Benkaim and Gavelin bring back a lot of experience for the Utes after the two played mostly as the No. 4 and No. 5 singles, respectively.

Benkaim was dominant at the No. 4 position in singles play, recording a 16-7 overall record in dual play. Following wins over No. 40 Old Dominion and Denver, Benkaim was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week. Later in the season on Senior Day, Benkaim clinched the match winner over No. 12 Stanford with a 2-6, 7-6, 6-2 win. Gavelin immediately made an impact as a true freshman and finished the season with a 14-10 singles record, while holding a 9-8 record as Utah's No. 5 singles. Gavelin's key wins from a year ago include singles wins against Miami, Old Dominion, and Oregon.

Cory battled an injury that kept him out of competition for most of the spring season. Cory registered four doubles wins in the spring, which were in the top doubles spot with Benkaim against BYU, Weber State, Montana State, and Middle Tennessee State. McCallie is looking to make an impact for Utah this year after not seeing any action during his freshman season.

NOTABLE NEWCOMERS
The Utes welcomed freshmen Rafael Grovas and Rian Ta to the team. Grovas hails from San German, Puerto Rico, while Ta comes to the Utes from Fremont, Calif. Grovas was the top-ranked junior in Puerto Rico and represented his home country twice in the Davis Cup. He was ranked as high as the No. 405 player in the ITF Junior World Rankings, while also being tabbed as a four-star recruit out of high school.

Ta, a four-star recruit at the time of his commitment, ranked as high as No. 2 in Northern California in doubles play and was one of the top juniors in the USTA NorCal section. Ta also ranked No. 106 in the nation at one point.

2018-19 IN REVIEW
The Utah men's tennis team earned a spot in the NCAA Men's Tennis Championships for the second straight year under the helm of head coach Roeland Brateanu after the team had not qualified since the 1997 season. Utah finished the season 17-12 overall and ranked No. 42 in the final ITA poll, while earning a No. 1 Mountain Region ranking in the final poll.

The Utes picked up four wins over ranked opponents last season, including a win over No. 12 Stanford on Senior Day. Utah was led by all-conference selections Dan Little and David Micevski who finished the season ranked as the No. 45 and No. 93 players in the nation, respectively. Little also qualified for the NCAA Singles Championships and was Utah's first selection since the 2007 season.

Brateanu was tabbed as the ITA Mountain Region Coach of the Year for the third straight season and Little was named the ITA Mountain Region Senior Player of the Year. Slava Shainyan also played a key role for the Utes last season mostly as the No. 3 singles player and paired with Micevski as the top doubles team. Russell Benkaim and Mathias Gavelin were also key contributors to Utah's success from a year ago.

UP NEXT
The Utah men's tennis team will have a short turnaround as they will head to the ITA Regionals in Denver, Colo. The ITA Regionals will run Wednesday through Sunday, Oct. 16-20.