Kentucky's Liam Draxl, Gabriel Diallo set for NCAA Singles Tournament
Kentucky Men’s Tennis came up just short of a team national championship, but a pair of Wildcats can still bring back some impressive hardware to Lexington.
Junior men’s tennis stars Liam Draxl and Gabriel Diallo are set to begin play in the 2022 NCAA Singles Tournament on Monday evening at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex in Champaign, IL. Draxl and Diallo are two of the nation’s top individual tennis players in the country and this is the second consecutive season they have qualified for the singles event.
The Kentucky Men’s Tennis team lost in the national championship game, the program’s first-ever appearance, on Sunday evening to the Virginia Cavaliers.
Draxl comes in as the fourth-overall seed in the field and he will match up against Wake Forest’s Eduardo Nava at 7:00 p.m. EST on the TennisONE app. The 6-foot-1 Ontario native is the reigning Intercollegiate Player of the Year and is ranked fourth in the ITA singles player rankings. Draxl advanced to the Final Four in 2021, the first Wildcat to do so since Eric Quigley in 2012.
As for Diallo, he’ll face off against Baylor’s Adrian Boitan at 6:30 p.m. EST on the TennisONE app. The 6-foot-7 native of Montreal comes into the tournament ranked No. 21 in the nation, receiving an at-large bid. Diallo made it to the Sweet 16 in 2021 as the 14-seed.
Both Draxl and Diallo were tabbed to the All-SEC First Team this season.
Similar to dual match competition, every matchup during the NCAA Singles Tournament will play out to the best of three sets. No-ad scoring and a seven-point tiebreaker (first to seven points, must win by two points) at six-games-all will be used for all matches.
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