This Week on the Courts

The Coastal Carolina men's tennis team (7-3) has four matches this week. The Chanticleers begin their week by traveling to Hilton Head, S.C., to take on Connecticut (0-4) in a neutral site match on March 7 at 2 p.m. CCU comes home to the Billy Nichols Tennis Center to play three matches this weekend. The action begins on Thursday, March 9, as conference rival UNC Asheville (1-1) comes to Conway, S.C. for a 3 p.m. match. Coastal plays its second Big South match of the weekend against Liberty (0-2) on Saturday, March 11 at 12 p.m. The busy weekend wraps up with a non-conference match against James Madison (3-6) on Sunday, March 12 at 2 p.m.

This is the first ever meeting between Coastal and Connecticut. CCU is a 7-5 all-time against the UNC Asheville Bulldogs, having dropped the last four regular season meetings, including last year's 7-0 loss. The Chants are 8-4 against Liberty, but have dropped the last three meetings to them. Coastal is 1-3 all-time against James Madison, although last year's meeting was a 5-2 Chants victory.

Coastal had a great weekend of action as it won three road matches. The Chanticleers defeated Winston-Salem State on Friday, March 3 7-0. Coastal nipped Gardner-Webb 4-3 on Saturday, March 4 and wrapped up an undefeated weekend by sweeping Limeston College 7-0 on March 5. Junior Elliott Quibell was a perfect 3-0 on both the singles and doubles court.

Junior Simon Taylor has now won 35 matches in his playing career, good for 10th place on Coastal's all-time singles victories list. He only trails Niclas Adnoff by one for ninth all-time at CCU.

Coastal Carolina senior Brian Dowis and sophomore David Mellis are a perfect 6-0 on the doubles court as a team this year.

CCU had a terrific start to the season a big part of the great start is the addition of junior transfer Elliott Quibell. Quibell has a team-best nine wins on the singles courts this season. Teammate junior Andy Caress has been almost as impressive as he is 8-2.

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.

Coastal Carolina's men's tennis team will have one match next weekend as the Chants welcome in Elon at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 18.