Zeleny' Orel

UNT has announced the signing of 3 top-tier international players, one for the spring semester and two for next fall. Coach Lama is quoted as saying "this is the strongest recruiting class we have assembled in the time I have been here." Minying Liang from China will be eligible to join the team in January for the spring semester. Laura Arciniegas from Colombia and Tamuna Kutubidze from Georgia (the country, not the state) will begin at UNT in the fall. Laing will fill an open roster spot on this year's team and Arciniegas and Kutubidze will replace the two seniors on the team, Kseniya Bardabush and Fanziska Sprinkmeyer, who graduated in three years and is a graduate student but a senior in eligibility. Both have played sparingly this fall while nursing injuries but should be ready for the spring semester. For more detailed information about these recruits, go to www.meangreensports.com/sports/w-tennis GO MEAN GREEN!

UNT has announced the signing of 3 top-tier international players, one for the spring semester and two for next fall. Coach Lama is quoted as saying "this is the strongest recruiting class we have assembled in the time I have been here." Minying Liang from China will be eligible to join the team in January for the spring semester. Laura Arciniegas from Colombia and Tamuna Kutubidze from Georgia (the country, not the state) will begin at UNT in the fall. Laing will fill an open roster spot on this year's team and Arciniegas and Kutubidze will replace the two seniors on the team, Kseniya Bardabush and Fanziska Sprinkmeyer, who graduated in three years and is a graduate student but a senior in eligibility. Both have played sparingly this fall while nursing injuries but should be ready for the spring semester. For more detailed information about these recruits, go to www.meangreensports.com/sports/w-tennis GO MEAN GREEN!

Missing our #1 singles player and doubles team due to injury didn't help. I agree we need another strong top player to have a chance against Rice. Hoping we don't get into the same bracket in the conference tournament, but that will mean doing well enough to be seeded 2nd. It should be interesting to see how we fare in the ITA Regional Tournament next month.

UNT results from the Midland Racquet Club Collegiate Invitational Program, an Intercollegiate Tennis Association sanctioned event featuring 19 different colleges: This is a very competitive tournament and we were without our #1 player due to injury. We had a singles and doubles win over TCU and a doubles victory over Texas Tech. However, we had three doubles losses to Rice, last year's Conference USA champion. It looks like we were competitive in most of the matches, but will need to improve as the year goes on to become a conference force. The fall season events are usually individual ones, with the spring being team events. It will be interesting to see how we fare as the year goes along. Coach Lama's teams usually improve by the spring and conference tournament. Hope it is the same this year! Singles Anastasiya Shestakova vs. Alexis Sapegova (Penn State) won by withdrawal--moves to next round Alexis Thoma lost to Jean Runglerdkriangkrai (Pepperdine) 8-5 moves to consolation bracket Kamilla Galleva beat Sofiko Kadzhaya (TCU) 8-5 moves to next round Augustina Valenzuela lost to #6 seed Dobby Ieenabanchang (Tulsa) 8-7 moves to consolation bracket Ana Sofia Cordero vs. Danielle Feneridis (Pepperdine) won by withdrawal; then lost in second round to Emily Oliver (New Mexico) 9-8 Franzsika Sprinkmeyer lost to Kim Surin (Penn State) 6-3 and then in the consolation bracket to Lauren Pickens (Kansas) 8-6 Doubles Galleva-Shestakova lost to #1 seed Zimmerman-Benazant (Rice) 6-4 Sprinkmeyer-Thoma beat Jackson-Czamick (Texas Tech) 6-4; then lost to Durkin-Zinko (Rice) 6-3 Cordova-Valenzuela beat Kadzhaya-Dubavets (TCU) 7-6; then lost to #8 seed Hodge-Ho (Rice) 6-2 Rice was the Conference USA Champion last year and looks strong again this year Still have 4 singles entries, 2 on the regular draw an 2 in the consolation bracket No consolation bracket for doubles GO MEAN GREEN!

Minor injury...just being cautious with it

If you pm me by Saturday, August 23rd, I will sell 2 tickets to the game for $75 each Section 32 Row 14 Seats 33-34 UNT section with face value of $100 each

Tickets still for sale for anyone interested...will sell for $75 each if you pm me by Saturday, August 23rd

I sent you a pm

2 tickets to UT game for sale @$100 each Section 32, Row 14, Seats 33-34 PM me by August 22nd if interested

An 11:00 start time just leaves more time for a victory celebration! GO MEAN GREEN.....BEAT SMU

Go, Johnny, go!

Congrats to Women's Tennis for their 992 APR rating. They are consistently at/near the top each year, which is amazing to me since they are international players whose first language is not English (we do have a player from Texas this year however). Coach Lama does a great job recruiting scholar-athletes and focusing on academics. An example would be Franziska Sprinkmeyer from Germany who is graduated in three years with a degree in psychology. Luckily, she still has a year of eligibility and will be back to work on her master's. Women's Swimming also had a 992, followed closely by Softball with a 986. Keep up the good work ladies!

Tournament buzz was that Tulsa's top two players were no longer on the team

UNT really needs to win it first match to set up a meeting with Rice. An upset of Rice would be tough, but if our ladies all played at their best we could compete. I am sure Rice would come into the match very confident and the underdog sometimes wins. If we got to the finals by beating Rice. I think we would have a shot as an at-large team for the NCAA tournament (64 teams). However, first things first. With our young team, the first match may be really tough for us....need the freshmen to step it up and our Sun Belt tournament winning sophomores to come through. GO MEAN GREEN!

Glad to see us get one of the top 4 seeds...it will be a different tournament than in the past because we had played most Sun Belt teams prior to the tournament so we knew how we matched up. Not so with CUSA where we have only played a few teams. Plus this is a 16-team conference so the byes are big.....GO MEAN GREEN!

UNT Tennis got back into the win column with a much-needed 5-2 victory over conference foe UTSA. After a Wednesday loss to UTA, UNT need to regroup and they did. Kseniya Bardabush played very strongly, as did fellow junior Franziska Sprinkmeyer. These juniors are the team leaders of a very young UNT team and needed to set the tone for the day, which they did by winning their doubles point as well as their singles matches. Due to a continued absence of Kamila Galieva with a foot injury, Alexis Thoma teamed with fellow freshman Anastasiya Shestakova for the first time and they played well together. UNT won the important doubles point and went into their singles matches with the 1-0 lead. Kseniya (#1) has played extremely well the last two matches and seems to be peaking at tournament time. Franziska (#5) played a strong match for her first win since her Achilles Tendon surgery. She seems to be gaining back her confidence after her long layoff. Two of the freshman, Alexis Thoma (#4) and Ana Sophia (#6) were able to take their matches in straight sets. We have had some problems winning at the #2 slot (Anastasiya Shestakova) and the #3 slot (Augustina Valenzuela) recently. We need these two players to step it up a notch to have a chance of being successful in the Conference USA Tournament. It should be an interesting conference tournament...Tulsa is very strong, as is Rice. We lost to Tulsa, but have beaten UTSA, UTEP, and Louisiana Tech. The unknown factor is the Eastern Division teams which we have not played. Our national ranking is based as much on our strength of schedule as our wins, but there are always good teams without a national ranking who have not played as tough a schedule. I do know that all our girls will need to be at the top of their games for us to do well. Will be interested in seeing the tournament draw.....hope we are in the opposite bracket from Tulsa and are seeding at least #4. One more pre-tournament match next Saturday at 11:00 in Denton again Southern Alabama. I hope the weather is better than it was today. GO MEAN GREEN!

Pride needs to come back to beat UTSA....will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I agree this was a bad loss, but UTA played well and we were flat....that leads to a defeat! Results of UTSA and UNT for common opponents: Houston....both teams lost 0-5 New Mexico...UNT won 5-2 and UTSA lost 2-5 UTEP...UNT won 4-1 and UTSA lost 3-4 UTA....UNT lost 0-4 and UTSA lost 3-4 Liberty...UNT won 5-1 and UTSA won 4-3 Saturday's match is a must win since this is a conference match...for both tournament seeding and confidence! Let's hope the girls bounce back. GO MEAN GREEN!

UNT lost to unranked UTA 4-0 this windy afternoon in Denton. UTA is a good team, but UNT came out very flat for the match. Losing the doubles point and the first set in 4 of the 6 singles matches, UNT was is a deep hole and didn't have time to dig out. UNT fell to #67 nationally and this loss may drop them out of the rankings (only the top 75 are ranked nationally), They should have been more competitive, but weren't. UNT must win its match against UTSA this Saturday to get a good seeding for the CUSA tournament...the first 4 seeds get a double bye. #19 Tulsa and #26 Rice should be seeded #1 and #2 in the tournament. UNT needs to beat UTSA to stay in contention for the #3 or #4 seed. They will need to play much better and go into the tournament on a winning streak to have a chance of doing well. Our #3 player is still out, but is hopeful to be back at tourney time. She will, however, have been out of competition for 2-3 weeks and may be rusty. Although losing at the #5 spot against UTA, Franziska Sprinkmeyer seemed to be moving better than last week. She still has time to get back into playing shape after her long absence due to Achilles surgery. Had all the matches been completed, freshman Alexis Thoma may have won her match. She won the first set, was down 1-5 in the 2nd, but was leading 6-5 when the match was called. #2 Anastasiya Shestakova was in the third set of her match and #6 Ana Sofia Cordero has won the first set and was in the second set when the match was called. There were a few bright spots, but in the end UNT did not play with the intensity needed to win. Teams will always look to knock of ranked teams and UNT has not seemed to learn how to handle these situations yet--young team, but they need to learn this quickly to do well in the tournament. Big match against UTSA this Saturday at 11:00 in Denton. GO MEAN GREEN!

Hope we can take matches against UTA and UTSA this week....UTA will be the tougher one, I think. We will still be missing our #3 player due to injury.

Memphis proved to be too tough for the Mean Green today and won the match 6-1. The only win came in the #1 position where Kseniya Bardabush played one of the best matches I have seen her play this season. It was a match full of long points between two good players and Kseniya prevailed in a 3rd set tie breaker. UNT was again hampered by an injury to a key player--#3 Kamilla Galieva is out for at least two weeks with a foot injury. This forced the bottom half of the team to play one spot up and that proved to be too much to overcome. Franzsika Spinkmeyer still looked very rusty coming off her long layoff from Achilles surgery. Both will be needed for the CUSA tournament April 16-20 in Norfolk, VA. UNT will probably be seeded #3 or #4 in the tournament if they win their remaining matches against UTA, UTSA and UAB. GO MEAN GREEN!

Hope losing today's doubleheader against UAB by scores of 9-1 and 5-1 don't hurt our chances of making it to the playoffs. We play UAB again Sunday at noon....hope 3rd time is a charm!

There are several of us who are also very interested in the "minor" sports and would appreciate the ease of using the "New Content" function. Since we tend to do well in some of these sports on a consistent basis (i.e. tennis, golf, softball, soccer) it would be great for more fans to see these posts if they use the "New Content" function. I hope you will give Mean Green 93-98's request serious consideration.

According to the latest national rankings, which rank the top 75 teams, this is how UNT Tennis ranks among Texas universities: #7 Texas A&M #16 Baylor #22 UT-Austin #27 University of Houston #30 Rice #32 Texas Tech #55 UNT #57 TCU Tulsa, a CUSA foe along with Rice, is ranked #21 From the Sun Belt, Georgia State is ranked #60 and Denver #69 UNT has a very young team this year and has had some injuries to top players, but they are still very competitive. It will be interesting to see how they fare against #38 Memphis Saturday in Denton...matches start at 11:00 am and admission Is free! GO MEAN GREEN!

Thanks for the info. Where do you coach?