News

Jun 25, 2023

Three from Men’s Tennis earn ITA Texas Region Awards

Eliot Spizzirri was named Senior Player of the Year, Nevin Arimilli was chosen

Eliot Spizzirri was named Senior Player of the Year, Nevin Arimilli was chosen Most Improved Senior, and Brandon Wagner was tabbed Assistant Coach of the Year in the Texas Region.

Austin – Three from Texas Men's Tennis earned Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Texas Region Awards, the ITA announced Tuesday. Eliot Spizzirri was named Senior Player of the Year, Nevin Arimilli was chosen Most Improved Senior, and Brandon Wagner was tabbed Assistant Coach of the Year. As winners of the regional awards, they will now be eligible for the national awards, which will be announced on June 12.

Spizzirri, who qualified as a senior with an additional year of eligibility remaining due to the pandemic, finished ranked No. 1 in the ITA singles rankings and was the top seed in the NCAA tournament where he reached the quarterfinals. He was ranked No. 2 in doubles with Cleeve Harper, and the pair entered the NCAA tournament as the 3 seed on the way to a runner-up finish. The 2023 Big 12 Player of the Year and a first-team All-Big 12 selection in both singles and doubles, Spizzirri closed 36-5 overall in singles and 20-1 in dual matches, all of which were at the No. 1 line. He was 27-2 against all ranked singles players, including 18-1 against the top-50, and 11-1 versus the top-25. At the ITA Indoor Nationals, Spizzirri was named the Most Outstanding Player and to the All-Tournament Team at No. 1 singles. He was also tabbed to the Big 12 Championship All-Tournament Team at No. 1 singles and was the No. 1 singles position champion in the conference. Additionally, he was named the Big 12 Player of the Week five times this season, which tied his own Big 12 single-season mark from 2021, and a record 10 times for his career. In doubles, Spizzirri and Harper earned first-team All-Big 12 honors and the Big 12 position championship at No. 1 doubles.

Arimilli had made 14 starts in dual matches throughout his entire career entering 2023 and made 23 this season, playing both Nos. 5 and 6 singles after establishing his lineup spot a third of the way into the season. He posted a 10-4 dual match record, including 3-1 at No. 5 and 7-3 at No. 6, and he tied for third on the team with four clinched overall matches that included a string of three-straight against Stanford, NC State and UCF. His most clutch moment from the season came against No. 20 NC State when the overall match came down to his court, and he emerged in a third-set tiebreaker after rallying from a 5-3 deficit in the breaker with four-straight points. He later contributed a singles point to help the Longhorns win the Big 12 regular season championship with a victory over No. 3 TCU. That match came on Senior Day in front of a UT record crowd of 1,332 with his family and a large number of friends in attendance.

Wagner, who just completed his fourth season at Texas under head coach Bruce Berque, has helped Berque guide the Longhorns to two Final Four appearances in the three years the NCAA tournament has been held in that span, three final top-four rankings by the ITA, two Big 12 regular season championships, and the program's first-ever appearance in the final of the ITA National Indoor Championships this year, which was followed by its first-ever No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament. He assisted in Spizzirri reaching the No. 1 singles ranking this year, which he maintained throughout the dual match season, Spizzirri and Cleeve Harper finishing as runners-up in this season's NCAA Doubles Championships, along with Harper and Richard Ciamarra winning the title the year before.