FRISCO, Texas – The University of New Orleans men's tennis team will become an affiliate member of the Southland Conference in men's tennis, league commissioner Tom Burnett announced Tuesday.
An NCAA Division I Independent in all other sports, the UNO will be added to the SLC's men's tennis schedule in 2013 in order to give the league six men's programs that play a single round-robin format in the regular season.
The SLC's other men's tennis playing members are Lamar, Nicholls State, Oral Roberts, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and fellow affiliate UT-Pan American.
“I am thrilled that we will be associated with the Southland Conference,” said UNO head tennis coach
Burzis Kanga. ”It is a great conference for us to be a part of and our goal is to compete for a conference title.”
Kanga's team in 2012-13 will feature five seniors including recent all-Louisiana selection
Ricardo Campos, who along with teammate
Hossam Meligy were named Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-Americans last week.
Abdelrahman Zaki will return from a redshirt year to join his fellow seniors, which include
Vinay Kamineni and
Dominik Kardell. Kamineni and Zaki are the lone members of the group to ever have an opportunity to compete for a league title, having both been on the roster when UNO hosted the 2010 Sun Belt Conference tennis championships at the University Tennis Center.
“I am excited that my seniors will have an opportunity to play for a championship,” said Kanga. “This is a competitive league and there are good teams in this conference, which will hopefully bring out the best in this core group of players we have returning.”
UNO is currently seeking membership in a conference for all of its sports by the 2013-14 school year. The SLC announced last month that it would visit the University along with Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word later this summer on site visits with an eye towards possible expansion.
