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Jan. 17, 2003

WACO, Texas -

#3 Baylor at Rice Tournament

Friday-Sunday, January 17-19, Houston, Texas

Five Bears will travel down to Houston this weekend to compete in the Rice Tournament and kick off the spring tennis season. Baylor will play their first home match on Monday, Jan. 20 when they host the University of Louisiana-Lafayette at 1 p.m.

Zoltan Papp is the only returning Baylor to participate in last year's Rice Tournament. He advanced to the finals of last year's tournament, but fell to Portland's Travis Parrot. Baylor will be sending No. 22 Benjamin Becker, a sophomore, No. 66 Matias Marin, a junior, junior Reiner Neurohr, senior Mike Garcia and freshman Jason Gould.

Sixteen teams will be competing in this weekend's competition with matches beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.

Team notes...

- The Bears' current No. 3 ranking is the team's highest preseason ranking ever.

- Baylor's mens tennis team reeled off a school-record 18 straight wins before seeing their season end in the round of 16 of the NCAA Tournament with a loss to the eventual national champion Southern California.

- The last time the Bears were ranked at the No. 3 position was on March 23, 1999.

- The 2002 campaign was the most successful in the program's history at 27-2.

- Matias Marin and Zoltan Papp received their highest singles rankings this year at No. 66 and No. 22, respectively.

- The Bears' preseason schedule pits them against eight teams ranked in the top 30.

Baylor in the Rankings...

According to the pre-season Omni Hotels Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) team rankings released Jan. 13, the Baylor men's tennis is ranked No. 3 in the country. The No. 3 ranking is Baylor's highest preseason team ranking ever achieved. In the preseasonl ITA Top 125 individual rankings released on Jan. 13, five Bears received rankings. Newcomer Benedikt Dorsch, a sophomore, begins the season ranked No. 1, the highest ever for a Baylor men's tennis player. Zoltan Papp checked in at No. 22, Benjamin Becker comes in at No. 23, Matias Marin at No. 66 and rounding out the five players is Ivor Lovrak at No. 97. One doubles teams was ranked among the top 50, Benjamin Becker and Zoltan Papp at No. 47.

Protecting the Home Court...

During the 2002 season, the Bears won all 16 of their home matches. In fact, under head coach Matt Knoll the Bears are 59-16 when playing at home. Thirteen matches were won on the Baylor Tennis Center and while the other three were played at the Ennis Indoor courts.