The Western New Mexico University men’s tennis team will open the season ranked where they left off. The Mustangs came in 27th in the national Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) rankings in the first release for 2015.
Junior Jean-Laurent Pageault grabbed a 31st national ranking in singles and is the highest ranked player out of the RMAC.
WNMU was slotted fourth in the ITA South Central Region rankings earlier this year, while the women grabbed ninth.
Pageault is also ranked in the South Central Region in singles play at No. 3 after going 9-10 in singles play last year with a majority of his matches (8-9) coming at the No. 2 position. He went a perfect 5-0 in conference play and went 13-9 in doubles play that included a perfect 5-0 RMAC mark with teammate Pablo Santibanez. Sascha Brechtel is ranked in the region coming in at No. 7. Both Pageault and Brechtel have already posted solid results this fall advancing to the quarterfinals of the ITA Fall Regionals that took place in San Antonio.
WNMU went 13-10 overall last year and again had a perfect 5-0 regular season and 2-0 RMAC Tournament record. The Mustangs collected their sixth straight conference regular season and tournament crowns. In addition to Pageault and Brechtel the Mustangs also return sophomores Tristan Da Lio, Vladimir Gnilozubov, Santibanez and two new freshmen in Liam Fraboulet and Blayze O'Keefe.
The men will open the spring season on Feb. 5 at Arizona Christian, while the women begin with a scrimmage on Jan. 23 at UTEP.
