This Week On The Courts

The Coastal Carolina men's tennis team (3-1) has a full slate of action as it travels to Buies Creek, N.C. to take on the Campbell Camels at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 15. Then the Chants return home to play a pair of matches over the weekend, Saturday, Feb. 18 against Longwood at 9 a.m. and Wofford at 4 p.m.

Coastal is 2-8 lifetime against Campbell. The Chants were defeated by the Camels 5-2 last season. CCU is a perfect 1-0 all-time against Longwood, having defeated them their only meeting last season 6-1. The Chants are 1-1 against Wofford having defeated the Terriers 4-3 in their last meeting in 2002.

On Feb. 10, Coastal defeated Coker 7-0. Sophomore David Mellis set the tone early as he won at the number-one singles match. Other Chants to win on the singles court were juniors Simon Taylor, Andy Caress, Richard Redding and Ryan Weisband. On the doubles courts Redding and Quibell teamed up to defeat the number one doubles team from Coker. The two other Chanticleers doubles teams to come away with the wins include Taylor/Caress and Mellis/Brian Dowis.

Four singles matches into the season ,the Chants have two men's tennis players that have yet to taste defeat. Juniors Andy Caress and Elliot Quibell are both a perfect 4-0 this season on the singles courts.

Junior Simon Taylor has now won 31 matches in his playing career, only three wins behind former Chant Stephen Ginn for 10th place on Coastal's all-time singles victories list.

Coastal Carolina's tennis team was picked seventh in the 2006 Big South's preseason poll. Winthrop is the preseason picked to win the conference. Coastal returns seven letter winners including senior Brian Dowis and junior Simon Taylor to led the team this season.

CCU's Brian Dowis was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All District III Men's at Large First Team in the summer of 2005. Dowis, a mathematics major, had a grade point average of 3.922 and was also named the Big South's Conferences Men's Tennis Scholar Athlete of the Year. He was the sixth Coastal men's tennis player to be named the Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the third in the last four years.

Coastal Carolina tennis team had a successful fall season. Junior Ryan Weisband and sophomore Ryan Vrba each had 4-1 record to lead the team in singles play. In doubles junior Andy Caress had a team-best 7-2 record. The doubles pair of juniors Elliott Quibell and Simon Taylor were crowned as champions of the UNCW/Landfall Invitational.

Serve-and-Volley

The Coastal Carolina men's tennis has a busy week of action next week. The Chants begins its week on Sat, Feb. 25 at UNC Wilmington at 1 p.m. Coastal then returns home for its first home conference match of the season as it takes on Radford on Sunday, Feb. 26 at 2:30 p.m.