This Week on the Courts

The Coastal Carolina men's tennis team (4-2) has another busy weekend of action. The Chants begin their weekend by traveling to Wilmington, N.C. to take on UNC Wilmington at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25. CCU will then return home for a 1 p.m. match against conference rival Radford on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Coastal is 4-4 lifetime against UNC Wilmington. The Chants were defeated by the Seahawks 7-0 two years ago in the two teams last meeting. CCU is a 5-7 all-time against Radford, having lost the last three meetings to their conference rivals. Last season, Coastal lost 4-0 to Radford in a shortened match.

On Feb. 18, Coastal defeated Longwood 4-3. Junior David Mellis was defeated in the number-one singles match. Juniors Elliott Quibell and Simon Taylor gave CCU the lead as they won the second and third singles matches, respectively. After Longwood rallied and won the next two singles matches, sophomore Ryan Weisband stepped up and won the sixth and final singles match to secure the victory for the Chants. Earlier in the afternoon, the Chants doubles teams of Taylor/Andy Caress and Mellis/Brian Dowis won their matches.

Six singles matches into the season the Chants Elliott Quibell has yet to be defeated on the singles courts. He is a perfect 6-0.

Junior Simon Taylor has now won 32 matches in his playing career, only two 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 weekend of action and travel next weekend. The Chants begin their weekend on Friday, Mar. 3 as they travel to Winston Salem, N.C. to take on Winston-Salem State at 2:30 p.m. CCU then travels to Boiling Springs, N.C. to play against Gardner-Webb at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Mar. 4. The Coastal busy weekend concludes with a trip to Gaffney, S.C. to take on Limestone, Mar. 5 at noon.