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Men's Tennis Puts Three Into NCAA Individual Competition

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Men's Tennis 5/3/2017 12:00:00 AM
May 3, 2017

INDIANAPOLIS - A trio of Baylor men's tennis student-athletes were selected to participate in the NCAA individual championship action starting May 24 in Athens, Ga.

The NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Subcommittee made the announcement Wednesday that Juan Benitez and Max Tchoutakian would be two of the 49 at-large bids into the 64-man singles bracket. Benitez will be seeded in the 9-16 range of the bracket. The duo's selection marks the 16th-consecutive year that the Bears have had at least one competitor in the NCAA singles draw.

Meanwhile, Benitez and doubles partner Will Little were one of 20 at-large selections to the 32-tandem NCAA Doubles Championship draw.

The NCAA Singles & Doubles Championships will be held at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex May 24-29 in Athens, Ga., following the conclusion of team championship play. All matches will be the best-of-three sets. No-ad scoring and a 7-point tiebreaker at six-games-all will be used for all matches. In doubles, a 10-point match tiebreaker will be played in lieu of a third set.

Benitez, a sophomore, is currently ranked No. 14 and will appear in NCAA individual postseason action for the first time. He is 21-8 on the year in singles play and 16-8 in dual-match action. Benitez has lost five of his last six decisions, but previously reeled off five-straight wins.

Tchoutakian, ranked No. 44, is a senior with a 28-8 overall record and a 15-2 mark in dual-match singles action. He boasts a 9-4 mark against ranked opponents and has won four-straight decisions. Tchoutakian made the NCAA Singles draw in 2015 as well, going 1-1 with a three-set loss in the round of 32 ending his run.

As the 17th-ranked duo in the country, Benitez and Little are 5-4 on the year with all of those matches coming in dual-match play. The tandem owns victories over the country's then-No. 1 tandem of Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat of Cal and the then-No. 5 duo of Julian Cash and Arjun Kadhe of Oklahoma State. The BU twosome is 3-4 against nationally ranked pairings.

Additionally, sophomore Johannes Schretter is the second alternate to the 64-man singles bracket. It was announced Tuesday that as a team, the seventh-seeded Bears would welcome Cornell, Rice and Lamar to Waco and the Hurd Tennis Center for first and second round action on Friday and Saturday, May 12-13.

The action in Waco gets underway on Friday, May 12, as second-seeded Cornell (21-3) and No. 3 seed Rice (23-7) will play at 10 a.m., followed by the Bears taking on fourth-seeded Lamar (17-7) in first round action at 1 p.m. The winners of those two matches will then play on Saturday, May 13, at 4 p.m. BU is currently 21-7 on the season and ranked No. 6 in the latest Oracle/ITA team rankings.

Stay up to date with men's tennis by following us on Twitter @BaylorMTennis.

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Players Mentioned

Juan Benitez

Juan Benitez

6' 3"
Freshman
Will Little

Will Little

5' 9"
Freshman
Johannes Schretter

Johannes Schretter

6' 5"
Freshman
Max Tchoutakian

Max Tchoutakian

6' 0"
Sophomore

Players Mentioned

Juan Benitez

Juan Benitez

6' 3"
Freshman
Will Little

Will Little

5' 9"
Freshman
Johannes Schretter

Johannes Schretter

6' 5"
Freshman
Max Tchoutakian

Max Tchoutakian

6' 0"
Sophomore