Piric Announces 'Busy' Fall Schedule
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami men’s tennis team will participate in eight events this fall, head coach Aljosa Piric announced Wednesday.
On three occasions, the Hurricanes will split and travel to different destinations, allowing them to take on multiple challenges at the same time.
“We have a pretty busy schedule in the fall,” said Piric, who enters his second season at Miami. “The way we designed and created the schedule this year is to give all our guys a variety of opportunities.
“We compete against the best teams in the country and obviously we are going to the best tournaments that we can find. We are also going to send some guys to different events in different parts throughout the country, just to have them experience different levels of competition.”
Miami, which will welcome five newcomers for the 2017-18 season, will have its full contingency only for the trip to the ITA Southeast Regional Championships Presented by Oracle in Atlanta, hosted by Atlantic Coast Conference rival Georgia Tech Oct. 12-16.
“Having that many young guys on the team, for us as coaches, the fall serves as an opportunity to get to know who they are as players and competitors, how to coach them and which buttons to press to help them – and the team – improve,” Piric said. “Overall, it is just a semester to get to know our team.”
The crossovers begin in the very first week of fall season. From Sept. 21-24, the Hurricanes will participate simultaneously in the University of Florida Invitational in Gainesville, Fla., and the FGCU Invitational, which takes place at the same time in Fort Myers, Fla.
About a week later, at the start of October, a group of Canes will fly off to the All-American Championships in Tulsa, Okla. (Oct. 1-9), while the rest will stay in the Sunshine State to represent Miami in the annual Bedford Cup (Oct. 5-8), which will be hosted by Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla., this fall.
The Canes will complete the fall in the second week of November, when some of them make Miami’s only trip north to the Navy invitational (Nov. 5-7) in Annapolis, Md. while the rest of them will travel to Birmingham, Ala., for the University of Alabama Invitational (Nov. 5-7).
“We are going to decide who goes where based on how the guys are developing,” Piric said. “I am pretty confident that each of the guys is going to get a very competitive schedule and that they are going to grow and improve throughout the semester leading up to the season in January.”
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