Bulldog Net Duo To Begin Action In NCAA Doubles Thursday
Carvalho and Pinto, ranked 29th nationally, will battle the 18th-rankedUniversity of Washington tandem of Daniel Chu and Alex Slovic in the firstround Thursday afternoon at the Mitchell Tennis Center on the Texas A&Mcampus. The match's start time, which will not be before 1 p.m. CT, will bedetermined after Thursday's second round of singles has been completed.
The MSU pair is 14-16 overall this season. Among their successes was asemifinal showing in the fall at the ITA All-American Championships inChattanooga, Tenn., college tennis' first major of the year. During thatrun, which earned them a top 10 ranking in January, they upset thesecond-ranked team in the country at the time.
Other highlights of the pair's campaign was a quarterfinal showing atthe Southern Intercollegiate Championships in Athens, Ga., in September anda berth in the prestigious 16-team field of the ITA National IndoorChampionships, the second major, in Ann Arbor, Mich., in November. The duoalso made the quarters of the SEC Indoor Championship in New Orleans inJanuary.
Chu and Slovic are 11-5 overall together in 2004-05. The majority of theHusky duo's matches came during dual match play, where they went 7-3. Theyalso reached the finals of the Pac-10 Championships in late April.
Carvalho and Pinto's selection to this year's field marked the 17thconsecutive season that MSU had qualified at least one singles or doublesparticipant for the NCAA Individual Championships. They are the first Statedoubles team to make the NCAA field since 2002.
All of the action in the 2005 NCAA Championships can be followed live onaggieathletics.com.