Phoenix announce spring tennis schedule
Jan. 31—Cumberland head tennis coaches Thiago Lins and Karen Martinez have announced the 2024 schedule with seven total home matches and seven matches each against teams that qualified for the 2023 NAIA National Championships.
The Phoenix will serve off their season this weekend at NCAA Division I Lipscomb University, where the men will challenge the Bison. Cumberland will continue to play on the road for much of February with both teams playing against Sewanee the following weekend, though the men will play the Tigers on the 10th and the women on the 11th. The men will also compete against former conference foe UT-Southern the same day.
Next up, the tennis teams will head to Harrogate where Lincoln Memorial will host a collection of teams for a weekend of matches. First up, the Phoenix will take on Milligan University and follow up that same evening with a match against host LMU. Cumberland will wrap up the next morning at 10 a.m. on the road against Union College from Kentucky, which boasts two ranked programs with their men and women being ranked 19th and 15th, respectively.
The following week CU will travel south to Macon, Ga., where the Phoenix will play a number of ranked teams, beginning with host Middle Georgia State on Feb. 22, setting up top-15 play for both teams. The next day both teams will play the same competition, with Friday bringing Ave Maria and Southeastern. Saturday, however, will bring some change.
The women's team will serve off on the 23rd with a match against Brenau University, while the men will play SCAD-Atlanta, and then both teams will regroup to play against Reinhardt University that afternoon. Cumberland's final matchup of the weekend is against the College of Coastal Georgia. In total, both the men and women will play five ranked or receiving votes matches a piece, with the women playing three teams ranked within the top ten in the preseason poll.
After playing more than 10 matches on the road, the Phoenix will finally open up their home schedule with a conference match against Georgetown College on Feb. 29 at the Tommy Gray Memorial Courts. The next day both sides will take on Indiana Wesleyan, while the men will also take on Grace College.
Taking their largest break of the season so far, CU will have an 11-day hiatus to recover before the men head to Clarksville to face off against another DI program, Austin Peay, on March 12. Mid-South Conference play will begin soon after as both sides head to Bethel to match up against the Wildcats on the 14th.
For the final time this season, the men alone will take on a team, hosting Tennessee Southern on March 20. Moving forward both teams have an identical schedule starting with back-to-back home matches against conference opponents Freed-Hardeman (Mar. 22) and Campbellsville (Mar. 23). Cumberland's last home match of the season is against a strong opponent who CU has yet to face so far, Lewis-Clark State College.
For their remaining two matches of the season the Phoenix will be on the road to face two of their strongest opponents all season, Cumberlands (Ky.) on April 6 and then finishing their regular season against Lindsey Wilson in Columbia.
The Mid-South Conference Championship will take place from April 18-20 in Bowling Green, and the NAIA National Tournament will be from May 14-18 in Mobile, Ala.
