No. 63 BYU Takes On No. 70 Princeton

PROVO -- The No. 63 BYU men's tennis team hits the road again to play a neutral-court match with No. 70 Princeton. The two evenly-matched teams will face off in Palm Springs, Calif., at the site of the Pacific Life Open Saturday at 4 p.m.

"Princeton is going to be a tough team all the way down," BYU head coach Jim Osborne said. "It's going to be another step-up time for the lower seeds."

The Cougars will play without Anton Rudjuk in singles again. Rudjuk injured his ribs last week in practice. Gert Vilms will return to play doubles, but will sit out singles once again. Vilms and Carlos Lozano are the No. 6 ranked doubles team in the country. Vilms is still nursing a hamstring injury and the Cougars will need to pick up the slack in singles for him.

BYU did exactly that as the Cougars defeated Denver last week. Jeff Olsen, Jeff Harbach and Jose Luis Lechuga all played well to overcome the loss of Vilms and Rudjuk. Erik Nyman and Nic Losee also won their singles matches and the Cougars also swept all three doubles matches to beat Denver 6-1.

BYU will have the week off following the Princeton match and will resume play Mar. 25. The Cougars will return to the West Coast and play Sacramento State, Cal and Stanford in three days.