DENTON, Texas (10/15/09) – North Texas tennis takes the court Friday morning in Waco, Texas, for the Wilson/Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Texas Regional.

Five of the eight members on the team have been selected to participate in the main draw, which is a team high under current head coach Sujay Lama.

“It’s important for us to have a good performance at the regionals,” Lama said. “It would give us a huge boost of confidence for the goals that we have set for this year.  Having five singles players in the main draw is an example of how far we have come in such a short amount of time. However, there is no time to be complacent.  The words that we have hammered all week long with our team is to stay hungry and focused.”

Senior Catalina Cruz will be joined by juniors Madura Ranganathan and Amy Joubert and sophomores Irina Paraschiv and Paula Dinuta as the five Mean Green athletes who were selected to participate in the main draw which will begin Saturday evening.

The three remaining North Texas members will participate in the qualifying draw, which begins Friday with two rounds of singles. 

Narine Kazarova will open the regional against Caroline Dedering of UTSA , while Shannon MacKenzie takes on Manijee Ashrafi from Lamar and Ashley Akin faces off with Malin Anderson of UT- Pan American.  All three matches will take place at 10:30 a.m.