Men's Tennis Opens Up BIG EAST Tournament Action Against St. John's on Friday

Friday, April 23

Cayce, S.C.

1 PM

Xavier University

St. John's

Men's Tennis Opens Up BIG EAST Tournament Action Against St. John's on Friday

04.22.21 | Men's Tennis

Championship Central Live Stats

Musketeers earn No. 7 seed in 2021 conference tournament

By: Hayley Schletker, Xavier Athletic Communications

CINCINNATI – Xavier men's tennis will open up BIG EAST Championship action on Friday, April 23 against No. 2 seed St. John's in Cayce, S.C., with the match getting underway at 1:00 p.m. The winner of the match against St. John's will advanced to the quarterfinals to face the winner of the match between No. 1 DePaul vs. No. 8 Georgetown.

The women's and men's championship matches will be streamed live via the BIG EAST Digital Network Presented by SoFi. All Championship information is available here.

BIG EAST CHAMPIONSHIP

The Red Storm are the No. 2 seed in the BIG EAST Championship after going 14-1 in the 2021 regular season.
Xavier is 1-5 all-time against St. John's in matches on record. The last match-up was in February 2020, a 6-1 loss for the Musketeers in Cincinnati.
The 2020 BIG EAST Championships were canceled due to COVID-19. In the 2019 BIG EAST tournament, the Musketeers fell to St. John's in the opening round, 4-1.
St. John's went on to become the 2019 BIG EAST Champions. The Red Storm advanced to the NCAA Championships, but fell in the opening round to No. 5 Virginia.

THE BRACKET

THE SEEDS

DePaul
St. John's
Marquette
Butler
Creighton
Villanova
Xavier
Georgetown

Seeds were determined by the conference's tennis championship and coaches' seeding advisory committees that review each team's regular-season schedule, ITA rankings, results against BIG EAST and common non-conference opponents and wins/losses against ranked foes.

LAST TIME OUT

Xavier closed out the regular season last weekend, falling 5-2 to Marquette in Cincinnati.
Marquette took the doubles point with a 6-2 win over Matthew Graft and Brett Winters on the No. 1 doubles court, and a 6-3 win on the No. 3 court against Jan Vrba and Jake Zipoli.
Marquette took two-set wins on the No. 1 court, 6-3, 6-2, against Brett Winters, on the No. 3 court, 7-6, 6-4, against Jan Vrba, and 6-0, 6-4 against Matthew Graft on the No. 5 court.
Xavier picked up a pair of two-set wins in singles, with Srdan Pejic taking the No. 2 court, 7-6, 7-6, and Cambell Nakayama taking the No. 4 court, 7-6, 6-0.
The final decision came on the No. 6 court, after Jake Zipoli battled back in the second set to force a third set, eventually alling 6-4, 3-6, 6-0, to set the final score at 5-2 in favor of Marquette.

THE TEAM: RETURNERS

Xavier returns eight from the 2020 season, with all getting action in dual play.
Brett Winters collected a team-leading 11 singles wins as well as eight doubles wins overall before the season was canceled in mid-March due to COVID-19. He had a 7-8 record in dual play, playing in the No. 1 spot. Winters went 5-8 in doubles play during the dual season, playing in the No. 1 spot...Partnered with Srdan Pejic, had a record of 3-6 and had a record of 2-2 with Matthew Graft.
Srdan Pejic had a team-leading 11 singles and 11 doubles wins overall before dual season was canceled in mid March due to COVID-19. Pejic went 6-8 in doubles during duals, primarily playing in the No. 1 spot with Brett Winters, where the pair went 3-6.
Matthew Graft collected six singles wins and seven doubles wins overall in 2020. He went 3-6 in singles during tournament play in the fall and picked up three singles wins in dual action, all in the No. 3 spot. Graft was 6-6 in doubles action in duals, going 4-4 playing No. 2 and No. 3 with Shashank Reddy and 2-2 in the No. 1 spot with Brett Winters.
Shashank Reddy collected six singles wins and nine doubles wins overall in 2020. He had a 4-8 record in singles during duals, playing primarily in the No. 4 spot where he had a 3-5 record. Reddy went 9-9 overall in doubles, including a 7-6 mark in dual play. He went 4-4 partnered with Matthew Graft, playing the No. 2 spot (1-2) and No. 3 spot (3-2) and also partnered with Srdan Pejic to go 3-2, playing No. 2s (0-2) and No. 3s (3-0).
Jan Vrba collected seven singles wins and six doubles wins in 2020. He had a 7-7 overall record in singles, including a 6-3 mark in tournament play in the fall. He went 1-4 in singles during dual play, playing primarily in the No. 4 spot (0-3) but also in the No. 3 spot (1-0) and the No. 5 spot (0-1). Vrba went 6-11 in doubles play, with a 2-8 record in dual matches. Partnered with Michael Lee, the pair went 1-7 in the No. 2 spot and 1-1 in the No. 3 spot.
Aaron Thompson collected eight singles wins and two doubles wins overall in 2020. He went 5-8 in singles during dual action, playing primarily in the No. 5 spot (2-7) but also playing No. 4 (2-1) and No. 6 (1-0). Thompson went 2-4 overall in doubles, with a 2-3 mark in the fall.
Dominic Macaluso picked up six singles wins and two doubles wins overall in 2020. He had a 4-2 record in singles play during the fall tournament season and went 2-2 in the No. 6 singles spot during duals. Macaluso went 1-0 in doubles during the spring, playing in the No. 3 spot with Jake Zipoli.
Jake Zipoli collected six singles wins and three doubles wins overall in 2020. He had a 4-2 singles record in tournament play during Fall 2019 and went 2-0 in dual singles. Zipoli also finished 3-3 overall record in doubles, going 2-3 in tournament play, partnered with Macaluso as well as Shashank Reddy.

THE TEAM: NEWCOMERS

Xavier added a pair of freshmen to the roster, Caden Kammerer and Pascal Mosberger.
Kammerer, from Longmont, Colorado, was a four-star recruit, as rated by TennisRecruiting.net, and was ranked as high as 111 in the site's rankings. During his prep career, Kammerer earned a Universal Tennis Rating of 11.6.
Mosberger, from Zurich, Switzerland, ranked as high as 105 in the Swiss Men's National Rankings and 2,256 in the ITF Men's World Rankings with a highest Universal Tennis Rating of 11.95 so far in his career.
Xavier also added two transfers, Arnaud Restifo and Cambell Nakayama.
Restifo joined Xavier as a grad transfer after spending three seasons at San Diego State, collecting 34 singles wins during his time there. He started his Aztec career with an All-Mountain West Conference Singles season, going 14-23 overall. As a junior he posted a in 14-16 mark in singles and an 11-9 mark in doubles play. He finished last season's abbreviated season at 6-6 in singles play.
Nakayama transferred from Cal Poly, where he spent two seasons. He finished the shortened dual season at 3-2 in singles, playing primarily in the No. 5 and 6 spots in 2020. In 2019, he finished the spring season with a 1-4 record in singles dual matches all from the No. 6 position.