Junior Finbar McGarvey has been with UTA men’s tennis the longest of any active player, joining the team in the fall of last year.
Courtesy of UTA Athletics
The UTA men’s tennis team is set to begin its fall slate Oct. 2, in the first of six scheduled meets after recovering from a rough 2025-26 season.
The Mavericks had four players in the fall and picked up more before the spring season. The team then went 0-9 during the spring, with five losses being sweeps. A decision to cancel the season midway was made due to player injuries.
During the offseason, all but two Mavericks, junior Finbar McGarvey and sophomore Novak Ivanovic, left. This pushed the team to rebuild its roster through mostly transfers, yet unlike last season, the team will begin the fall with a full roster.
Longtime head coach Diego Benitez credited his assistant coach, Mikayel Khachatryan, for the recruiting efforts, saying they put a good team together despite the losses.
“We didn’t lose too many guys because we didn’t have too many guys,” Benitez said. “I’m very happy with Finbar and Novak who decided to stay, and it was a tough situation for them to still believe that we could get this back on track.”
The team grabbed four players from the transfer portal with varying experience in the time and levels played at.
The eldest new Maverick is senior Leon Grassnickel, who has spent his entire collegiate career at the NCAA Division II level, spending his freshman year at Northwood University, then two seasons at Pennsylvania Western University at Edinboro.
In his sophomore year at Edinboro, Grassnickel went undefeated and the team made it to the NCAA Division II tournament. In his junior year, he won an individual regional championship. He said the chance to move up to Division I was a lucky opportunity.
“Coming from DII, there weren’t many players on that high level,” Grassnickel said. “Coming here the first couple weeks, I struggled as well. So I really need to get used to the pace of the game and also like the kind of professionalism of what we’re doing here.”
The transfer class includes one more upperclassman, junior Filip Avdeev. His most recent school was also Division II, but the first year and a half of his collegiate career was spent in Division I. He spent the fall 2025 semester at conference rival Eastern Kentucky University.
UTA also brought on two sophomore transfers: Bautista Durrel Rojas from Belmont University and Filip Paroulek from St. John’s University.
“It’s a new place. It’s new weather for a lot of them. A lot of them haven’t played this heat ever in their life,” Benitez said. “It’s not easy still to make the transition, but they have experience, and that’s what we were looking for.”
The team opens the season at the Ron Wesbrooks Invitational from Oct. 2 to 4 at the Thompson Family Tennis Center in Beaumont, Texas. The weekend after, UTA heads to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Texas Regionals at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center in Fort Worth.
The Mavericks then compete in the Ralph O’Connor Invitational from Oct. 16 to 18 at the George R. Brown Tennis Center in Houston. A few days later, the team plays its only out-of-state tournament, the Atlantic Sun Individual Tournament at Huston-Marsh-Griffith Tennis Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
The UTA men’s tennis team is the only sport on campus that competes in the Athletic Sun Conference instead of the United Athletic Conference. Benitez said the teams to beat in it will be Abilene Christian University and Stetson University.
“ACU has done a great job filling some spots that they needed to fill, and Stetson has just been a nice tradition of success that they have over there,” Benitez said. “We’re really looking forward to compete against those two.”
Mavericks that don’t make the trip to Nashville will likely compete in the Waco Invite from Oct. 23 to 25 at the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Texas. The team finishes its fall slate the week after at the Ralston/Neufeld Coaches Challenge at the Styslinger/Altec Tennis Complex in Dallas.
The UTA men’s tennis spring schedule has not been released yet.
@TyRoland06