HELOTES, Texas – The Texas Wesleyan Men's Tennis team (11-0) topped Texas A&M Texarkana in the Red River Athletic Conference (RRAC) final at Northside Courts on Sunday.
 
Andres Gonzalez, Pablo Olmedo, Mathieu Vinet, Arthur Voiseux and Thibault Gasser all made the all-tournament team.
 
Texas Wesleyan men's tennis competed intermittently from 1946-2001. In 2017, the program was revived and head coach Angel Martinez and assistant coach Steve Foster got to work.
 
"It's been an amazing run this season so far," commented head coach Angel Martinez. "This all starts with Coach Foster. I recruited a team, but he is the one that molded them into one cohesive unit. It feels great to win the conference in the first year as a member. [Making history] has never escaped them and often spoke about it during practices throughout the season."
 
The quickness at which Martinez and Foster have been able to craft and tune a national championship contender is impressive.
 
The program does has five prior appearances in the NAIA national championships, 1978, 1979, 1983, 1984 and 1998. However, this season has the added challenges of operating in a COVID-19 environment, including multiple cancellations.
 
Foster can see it all coming together, saying, "It is beginning to feel real. The core of the team has been the secret to the success this year. With no athletes as a runaway for the #1 position, we've had to adjust for every match. We put several different players at #1 week by week only to find that the middle of the lineup is really strong. This team has pulled off win after win never giving in and has more heart the any I've ever seen. It's been a true team championship run. They all have different and unique skills on the court and really rely on each other. We're blessed to have the leadership of coach Martinez. His recruiting skills are exceptional, bringing these guys together. Without that none of this would have been possible. "
 
The team also has five conference titles when it competed in the Texoma Athletic Conference in the late 1970's.


 

Teams	Players	Winner	Scores
MEN'S FINAL No. 1 Seed Texas Wesleyan vs. No. 2 Seed Texar A&M University - Texarkana	Gasser / Richter vs. Oviedo / Cabrillo	TAMUT	6-2
	Vinet / Voiseux vs. Tsati-Onla / Vega	TWU	6-3
	Gonzalez / Olmedo vs. Martinez / De la Carrera	TWU	6-2
	Andres Gonzalez vs. Alejandro Oviedo	TAMUT	6-2/6-1
	Mathieu Vinet vs. Gonzalo Vega	TWU	6-3/6-0
	Pablo Olmedo vs. Albert Cabrillo	TWU	6-4/6-7/0-1 Unfinished
	Arthur Voiseux vs. Kevin Tsati-Onla
	Felipe Parra vs. Fernando Martinez
	Thibault Gasser vs.  Felipe de la Carrera
	FINAL	TWU	3-0