WICHITA, Kan. - The Shockers ended a 5-year NCAA tournament drought and are headed to Fort Worth, Texas to face Arizona State in the first round of the NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships on Saturday, May 8 at 9:00 a.m. at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center.
 
Shocker Notables

• This is the Shocker's first at-large bid to the NCAA Championships in 12 tries. The program is still looking for its first win in the tournament.
• The previous NCAA Tournament opponents are as follows: Trinity (TX), Southern California, Pepperdine (2x,) SMU, Kansas (2x,) UCLA, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
• The Shockers have faced eight of the teams in the field of 64 and have a 4-11 record in these matches. The eight teams were Memphis (2x,) Denver (2x,) Pepperdine, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, UCF (2x,) USF, and Tulane
• The senior duo of Marius Frosa and Murkel Dellien came in at No. 43 in the ITA Doubles Rankings. This is their 15th overall appearance in the rankings. The duo is 9-5 on the season and 5-0 at home. They have a premiere win over No. 29 Trey Hilderbrand / Bogdan Pavel of UCF.
• The Shockers came in at No. 32 in the latest ITA Team Rankings and No. 32 in the coaches' poll. Their wins include knocking off No. 22 Memphis, No. 28 Pepperdine, No. 45 Denver, and SMU twice.
• Murkel Dellien is on fire right now, having won 12 singles matches in a row. He is ranked No. 35 in the latest ITA rankings, the highest ranking for a Shocker since Tin Ostojic was No. 26 in 2015.
• Seven of Dellien's wins have come at the top spot and five of them were versus ranked opponents, including No. 4 Gabriel Decamps of UCF and No. 29 Hamish Stewart of Tulane.
• Five Shockers have ten or more singles wins on the season: Nicolas Acevedo, Murkel Dellien, Marius Frosa, Ray Lo, and Orel Ovil.
• The Shockers are unbeaten at home in nine tries.

 
Scouting the Regional
 
Arizona State (16-8)

• The Sun Devils made a run all the way to the finals of the Pac-12 Championships and lost to eventual champion and 12 seed Southern California, 4-1.
• ASU came in at No. 20/22 in the last ITA poll and feature No. 98 Nathan Ponwith and No. 69 duo Tim Ruehl and Andrea Bolla.
• Ponwith leads the team with 15-7 record, with all but one match being at No. 1. He is 2-2 versus ranked opponents.
• The two teams met once in 2004, a Shocker loss

 
Arkansas (10-14)

• The Razorbacks lost in the first round of the SEC Tournament to eventual 14 seed Kentucky, 4-0.
• Arkansas came in at No. 43/40 in the last ITA poll and features No. 81 Nico Rousset and No. 44 Hunter Harrison and Enrique Paya.
• Rousset leads the team with an 15-12 record while playing mostly at No. 3. Only two other players have more than 10 singles wins.
• The all-time series favors Arkansas, 18-3.

 
TCU (16-7)

• The Horned Frogs finished as co-champions of the Big 12, but they dropped out of their conference tournament in a tight semifinal match against eventual No. 2 seed Baylor, 4-3.
• TCU came in at No. 7/7 in the last ITA poll and features five ranked singles players and two ranked doubles pairs, including No. 2 Alastair Gray and Luc Fomba.
• No. 13 Gray leads the team with a 13-6 record and No. 16 Luc Fomba is close behind with a 11-6 record.
• TCU leads the all-time series, 9-3.

 
Up Next
If the Shockers beat the Sun Devils, they will face the winner of TCU/Arkansas on Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
 
Match Updates
For updates during the match, follow @GoShockersMTEN on Twitter. A recap will be posted on GoShockers.com after the conclusion of each match. Live stats for all the matches in this regional can be found here and live video here.
 
Fort Worth Regional Full Schedule
Saturday, May 8, 2021:                
9:00 am - Arizona State vs. Wichita State (match #1)  
2:00 pm - TCU vs. Arkansas (match #2)           
 
Sunday, May 9, 2021:
1:00 pm - winner of match #1 vs. winner of match #2