2 duals await Lopes in Seattle


Grand Canyon Lopes (0-4)	vs	Washington Huskies (3-1)	Cal Poly Mustangs (0-0)
		Friday, Jan. 24 6 p.m.	Saturday, Jan. 25 6 p.m.
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The Grand Canyon men's tennis team will begin the first of a three-match road trip Friday when it faces Washington in Seattle. The Lopes will then face Cal Poly in a neutral-site match on Saturday.

The Lopes are coming off a 0-2 week in which they faced No. 25 Arizona State in Tempe and UC Riverside at home. After dropping the match to the Sun Devils, GCU lost a close 4-3 match at home to the Highlanders. Freshman David Weber and sophomore Maxim Kirsch each won at Nos. 5 and 6 singles while senior Valentin Lang won his first career singles and doubles matches at the No. 1 position.

THREE THINGS TO KNOW

COMMON OPPONENTS: The Lopes and Huskies will play five common opponents this season. The Huskies began the season with two matches against WAC opponent Seattle U and will play Cal Poly after the Lopes face them Saturday. Washington will host Boise State, which the Lopes play in late March along with facing Stanford and Arizona State.
SECOND STRAIGHT WAC AWARD: For the second straight week, GCU took home the WAC Doubles Players of the Week honors. This time, they went to Valentin Lang and Can Franke. After winning the award the previous week with Lorenzo Fucile, Franke teamed with Lang at No. 1 and defeated UC Riverside's Jayson and Michael Blando 6-1.
SCHEDULE STAYS TOUGH: The Lopes' nonconference schedule continues to stay tough with GCU facing its second Pac-12 opponent in nine days. The team will travel to No. 11 Stanford and No. 5 Baylor along with facing four teams that had at least 11 wins last season.

SCOUTING

Washington has started the season off strongly with a 3-1 record. The Huskies took down Seattle U in two straight 7-0 matches before falling to No. 17 Michigan at home. Most recently, the team won a close 4-3 match against UC Santa Barbara on Monday.

The Huskies are coming off a down season in which they faced 10 ranked teams and finished 7-17. This season, the team welcomes six newcomers, including Thibault Cancel who transferred after three years at Alabama and Jack Pulliam who is coming to Washington after his freshman season at Texas A&M. Cancel is 0-1 in singles while Pulliam has a 3-1 record with wins at Nos. 3 and 4.

GCU and Washington have met once before back in 1986 at a neutral-site match in Redlands, California. The Huskies won 8-1 with GCU's Cesar Luzon winning at No. 3 singles in straight sets over Charlie Short.

Cal Poly will begin the season against GCU after coming off a 14-10 record and a loss in their fourth straight Big West Tournament championship to UC Santa Barbara.

The Mustangs return eight players from last season including Antoine Noel, Josh Ortlip, Alex Stater and Gary Vardanyan, all of whom had double-digit wins in singles last season. Noel and Vardanyan are the top returning doubles teams after going 11-3 last season. Noel earned All-Big West first-team honors in singles and All-Big West second-team doubles honors with Vardanyan.

GCU and Cal Poly will keep their string of neutral-site matchups in ntact with their fourth all-time meeting on Saturday. Cal Poly owns a 3-0 record against GCU, most recently winning 4-2 in March of 2017. Fucile and Lang, then freshmen, each picked up singles wins at Nos. 2 and 4.

LAST TIME OUT

The Lopes lost 4-0 at Arizona State and 4-3 at home against UC Riverside.
Lang played his first career singles and doubles matches at No. 1, winning both.
Weber continued his hot start in singles, improving to 3-0.

WHAT'S NEXT

Next week, GCU will travel to NAU on Jan. 30 before hosting San Francisco at home on Feb. 1.

THREE THINGS TO KNOW

SCOUTING

LAST TIME OUT

WHAT'S NEXT

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Can Franke

Lorenzo Fucile

Maxim Kirsch

Valentin Lang

David Weber

Grand Canyon University Athletics