Feb. 14, 2007

WACO, Texas - The No.5 Baylor men's tennis team will travel to Chicago, Ill., this weekend to compete in the prestigious 16-team USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships hosted by the University of Illinois. Play will begin Friday, Feb. 16 and continue through Monday, Feb. 19 at the Midtown Tennis Club in Chicago.

This weekend will mark the Bears' sixth appearance, and fifth straight, at the National Team Indoor Championships. Baylor won the championship in 2005 and has a 12-4 record at the Team Indoors. Seventh-seeded Baylor is joined by the No. 1 seed and defending champion Georgia, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 UCLA, No. 4 Virginia, No. 5 Mississippi, No. 6 Illinois, No. 8 Notre Dame, No. 9 Pepperdine, No. 10 Duke, No. 11 Oklahoma State, No. 12 Boise State, No. 13 Texas, No. 14 Miami, No. 15 Stanford and No. 16 Pennsylvania.

"The National Team Indoor is wonderful preview of the NCAA's. Getting the top 16 teams together at one site serves as an excellent barometer for our team at this stage of the season," said head coach Matt Knoll.

Baylor's first round of action will be Friday, Feb. 16 at 3 p.m. (Central time) when the Bears take on No. 11 Duke. Should the Bears win, they will face either No. 2 Ohio State or Stanford Saturday. Baylor leads the series with Duke 4-2 after the Bears fell to the Blue Devils 4-3 in the first round last year.

Baylor, 6-1 on the season after posting wins over then-third-ranked UCLA (4-3) and 27th-ranked Stanford (7-0) in home matches last weekend, moved up three spots in the FILA/ITA national rankings. The Bears have not faced any other teams from the field this season.

Along with 16 top-ranked schools, there are 33 of the top 100 individuals in the ITA national singles ranking competing in the tournament including Baylor's No. 17 Michal Kokta, No. 53 Dominik Mueller, No. 56 Lars Poerschke and No. 66 Denes Lukacs. In addition to Kokta, the tournament features 10 of the top 20 players in the country: No. 1 Steven Moneke of Ohio State, No. 2 John Isner of Georgia, No. 3 Ivan Puchkarov of Oklahoma State, No. 5 Benjamin Kohlloeffel of UCLA, No. 8 Somdev Devvarman and No. 10 Treat Huey of Virginia, No. 11 Ryan Rowe of Illinois, No. 13 Luis Flores of Georgia, No. 14 Stephen Bass of Notre Dame and No. 15 Luke Shields of Boise State.

Daily Baylor results will be posted at www.baylorbears.com. Complete results, live scoring, results and recaps of each match will be posted on the ITA National Indoors Championship website at www.nationalteamindoors.com