April 18, 2007

C-USA Championship Bracket
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ----- The UAB men's tennis team is seeded fourth for the upcoming Conference USA Championships, coming up this weekend in Houston, Texas.

The Blazers (12-7) grabbed the No. 4 seed, partly due to their 3-1 record in conference dual matches this spring. Their lone C-USA loss, though, came at the hands of UCF, the team UAB will play Friday in the tournament's opening round.

The Blazers and Golden Knights will open the '07 championship Friday morning at 8:00 a.m. CT. The tournament will run April 20-22 at the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium at Rice University.

The winner of the UAB/UCF match will meet the winner of the match Friday (11:00 a.m.) between top-seeded Tulsa and No. 8 seed East Carolina. Other first-round matchups Friday include No. 2 seed Rice taking on No. 7 seed Memphis at 1:00 p.m. and third-seeded SMU meeting No. 6 seed Southern Miss.

The 2007 tournament bracket looks much the same for UAB as it a did a year ago. The Blazers and UCF also met in last year's first round with UAB prevailing by a 4-2 score. Both schools also were seeded the same in 2006 as they will be this weekend in Houston.

The first meeting this year between UAB and UCF -- back on Feb. 21 in Orlando -- resulted in a 6-1 Golden Knights' victory. However, the match was much closer than the final score would indicate as four or of the six singles matches were decided in three sets. UCF was able to win three of the four three-setters.

"They beat us earlier this year," said UAB head coach Derek Tarr, whose team is coming off a 5-2 victory over in-state foe Troy Tuesday in Birmingham. "I think we are going into the tournament with some confidence and I feel like we will be ready to play. UCF is a talented team and they are very deep."

Results for UAB and UCF have been different over the past several weeks. The Blazers have won eight of their last 11 matches while the Knights enter the tournament having dropped six consecutive dual matches and seven of their last nine.

Tulsa won last year's Conference USA title and will again be a favorite as the Golden Hurricane enters the tournament as the league's highest-ranked team at No. 21 in the latest FILA national rankings. Tournament host Rice is ranked No. 30 with SMU at No. 48.