Bes and Struyf to Debut at SEC Indoor Championships
1/12/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
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The University of Alabama men’s tennis team and head coach Billy Pate will send three players to the SEC Coaches’ Indoor Championships this weekend in New Orleans, La., two of which will be making their Alabama debut.
Freshmen Javier Bes and Sammy Struyf will play their first matches since coming to Alabama in January. Fellow freshman Taylor Striplin will also play in the tournament.
“This will give us a good opportunity to gauge where our new players are as we move towards beginning our spring season,” said Pate.
Bes and Struyf each joined the team on January 5. Bes, a native of Zaragoza, Spain where he was a top five juniors player, will play Friday, January 14 at 8 a.m. against Tennessee’s Bobby Cameron. Struyf is from Waregem, Belgium and has already earned two ATP points for his performance in a futures event in his home country. He’ll open his collegiate career on Friday as well against LSU’s Peter Richman at 1:30 p.m.
“This will be a difficult first event for these guys,” said Pate, “but we’ll get an idea of what kind of contributions we can expect from them this season. It will help us make sense of our line-up.”
Striplin, who was 4-2 during the fall campaign, will play his opening round match at 12:30 p.m. on Friday against No. 16 seeded Jason Hazley of LSU.
