PHOENIX—The Grand Canyon men's tennis team will finish the regular season with two final regular season matches in Chicago. The Lopes (14-5, 2-1) will face off against New Mexico State (12-7, 3-1) and (5-16, 0-3) looking to make up ground before the WAC tournament.
GCU kicked off WAC conference play with a 2-1 weekend in Kansas City. The Lopes won their first two matches in shutout fashion, defeating Seattle U and UTRGV 7-0 before falling to UMKC 6-1.
In the first three conference matches the Lopes saw great play from
Lorenzo Fucile who improved to 11-5 on the season with three straight singles wins in WAC play. Fucile in his first two seasons in the WAC is a perfect 7-0 in singles play. Fucile also teamed up with
Mathieu Rajaonah in doubles and went 2-1 from the number one position. The pair of
Lucas Grego and
Freddie Grant also won their first three WAC matches of their careers while playing from the No. 3 position.
The Lopes control their own destiny when it comes to finishing at least second in the conference. The top two teams in the standings will earn a first round bye and advance straight to the semifinal round. In the current standings, UMKC sits at 4-0 after defeating the second place team New Mexico State on Friday. The Aggies now sit at 3-1 just one game ahead of the Lopes who sit at 2-1.
In order for GCU to finish in the top two, they will have to defeat New Mexico State tomorrow morning, which would improve the Lopes' record to 3-1 and would knock the Aggies down to third. If the Aggies were to defeat GCU, they would claim the first round bye.