MOBILE, Ala. – The University of South Alabama men's tennis team will face five teams which competed in the NCAA Tournament a year ago and nine opponents that ended last season ranked in the ITA Collegiate poll in the schedule announced by head coach Nick Brochu.

The Jaguars open up the spring with an individual tournament when they compete at the Alabama Invitational in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Jan. 10-12.

Dual match-play gets underway on the 17th as South heads to take on Florida State, before traveling to College Station, Texas for the 2020 ITA Kickoff Weekend where the winner of each of the 15 regional sites will advance to the ITA Oracle National Indoor Championships hosted by the University of Illinois at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium from Feb. 14-17. USA will open up with top-seeded and regional host Texas A&M (Jan. 25) and then face either Georgia Tech or Oregon the following day.

After a tournament and four matches on the road during the opening month of the season, South Alabama returns home to the Bruce David Lubel Courts on Feb. 1 for a double header with Lamar and Nicholls State. USA then travels to the Sunshine State for a pair of matches against Miami [Fla.] and Florida Atlantic on Feb. 7 and 8, respectively, and then returns home for another double header on Feb. 15 against UAB and Florida A&M.

Following a nearly month long break, South will again return to action as all seven of its matches in March will be away from Mobile – at Central Florida (11th), at South Florida (13th), vs. North Florida (14th), at Coastal Carolina (20th), at Appalachian State (22nd), at Georgia State (28th) and at Georgia Southern (29th).

The Jags will wrap up the regular season by playing three of their final four matches on their home court. South Alabama will host Sun Belt Conference foes UTA (April 4), Louisiana (April 5) and former SBC foe FAU (April 11), while facing in-state foe Troy on April 8 in Troy, Ala.

The Sun Belt Championships will take place from April 16-18 in Atlanta, Ga., with the first set of NCAA regionals slated for May 1-3 on campus sites.

South Alabama finished up the 2019 season ranked No. 55 in the country and won its 18th Sun Belt Conference title while also advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year. The Jags return the Sun Belt Player to Watch and all-conference first team member, Loïc Cloes, as well as his first team doubles partner, and second-team all-conference player in singles, Clèment Marzol, back to the courts in this spring. Cloes and Marzol ended the fall season ranked No. 30 by the ITA, while Cloes also ranked in singles play as he ended the fall ranked 113th.

HE SAID IT
Head coach Nick Brochu
- On the goal of the composition of the 2020 schedule: "I feel the spring schedule is very challenging and that we crank it up a notch from last season. One of the goals of organizing a schedule is to prepare you for the conference tournament at the end of the spring. Another goal is to give your team the best opportunity to earn wins against ranked opponents, while also giving your top players an opportunity to play ranked opponents. This schedule accomplishes all of those goals. We start off against some very strong opponents. I like to do that because it will tell us where we are as a team and by the end of January, we will definitely know where we stand and what we need to work on as we prepare to get into our conference matches in March. Our schedule is very good and will be challenging with us having a young team, but at the same time it will motivate and excite our players as we prepare and train for the challenge. I think it's going to be a very exciting year for us."  
- On participating in the ITA Kickoff Weekend event: "It's a great reward for how we finished last season. We earned the right to be one of the top 64 teams in the nation. We will be competing at the Texas A&M site, which is a place we haven't competed at in many years, so that will be a great trip for us. It will provide us with a great opportunity to come back with one or two strong wins and increase our national ranking. After finishing No. 55 last season, our goal is to finish inside the top 50 this season."
- On Sun Belt Conference play this spring: "I believe the Sun Belt schedule will be tougher this year for us because most of our matches will be on the road. Our three conference road tips will be tough, but that's why we play a lot of road matches in January and February."

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/WeAreSouth_JAGS. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

Join the Baseline Club, the tennis-specific support club of the Jaguar Athletic Fund. All donations to the Baseline Club go directly to support the South Alabama men's and women's tennis programs. For more information on how you can join visit: http://jaguarathleticfund.com/baselineclub

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