PHOENIX, Ariz. – The Western New Mexico University men's tennis team opens the 2014 season in Phoenix this week with five matches in four days.


The Mustangs will play against a pair of community colleges to open the week in Glendale and Mesa on Thursday and Friday. Over the weekend, they will play two matches on Saturday against Azusa Pacific and Point Loma, before finishing the trip on Sunday against Sonoma State. Glendale CC is 4-0 this season with wins over Cypress, Saddleback, Mount San Antonio and Riverside. Mesa CC has played one match that they won over Imperial Valley. Azusa Pacific is off to a 4-0 start with three straight wins to open the season by one point over Vanguard, Point Loma and UC-San Diego, before a 9-0 win over Concordia. Point Loma has played one match so far in a close loss to Azusa Pacific. Sonoma State is 0-2 having faced Santa Clara and Fresno Pacific.


WNMU returns a pair of players that were named to the All-RMAC Preseason Team. Senior Rodrigo Almeida (Arapongas, Brazil/Nene Lourenco High School) was named the RMAC Preseason Player of the Year, while junior Juan Pablo Fuentes (Guadalajara, Mexico/) was named to the All-RMAC Preseason Team after being named the RMAC Player of the Year in 2013. Almeida went 11-9 last year in singles with all of his matches at the top flight. In doubles, he went 12-9 with Fuentes at the No. 1 slot. Fuentes also went 16-10 in singles matches playing at No. 1 (6-0), No. 2 (9-7) and No. 3 (1-3). Senior Francisco Damasio (Jundiai, Brazil/Centro Educational Sigma ) went 14-8 last year in singles spending time playing at No. 3 (2-0), No. 4 (4-2), No. 5 (6-5) and No. 6 (2-1). He also collected 14 doubles victories, including 13 coming with junior Alvaro Nunez (Madrid, Spain/). Nunez posted a 13-13 singles mark spending time at No. 2 (3-0), No. 3 (2-4) and No. 4 (8-9) and also had a total of 14 doubles wins. Junior Omar Lopez (Naucalpan, Mexico/) had three singles wins last year at No. 4 (1-0) and No. 5 (2-0), and also had six doubles wins. The Mustangs will have three new players on the team in freshmen Sascha Brechtel (Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Germany/Kurpfalz Gymnasium Mannheim ), Tristan Da Lio (Casablanca/Academie des Hauts de Nimes) and Jean-Laurent Pageault (Perrigny, France/Academi des Hauts de Nimes).