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The Liberty Flames men’s tennis team will compete at ITA Kickoff Weekend for the third straight year, beginning on Friday.

Liberty (2-1), the No. 4 seed, will take on No. 1 seed and 5th-ranked Kentucky (4-0) in Lexington, Ky. at the Hilary J. Boone Indoor Center on Friday at 1 p.m. The winner of that match will meet either No. 2 seed Notre Dame (4-1) or No. 3 seed Washington (2-0). Notre Dame and Washington play at 5 p.m. on Friday.

The championship match will be held on Saturday at 3 p.m., while the consolation match will be contested at 11 a.m. This is the third straight year that the Flames have been invited to compete at the prestigious ITA Kickoff Weekend featuring the best teams in the country.

There are 15 host sites, with four teams competing at each site. The winner at each site will advance to the 48th Annual ITA Division I Men’s Team Indoor Championship, held Feb. 17-20 at Illinois. Illinois will automatically be in the 16-team field as the host site school.

Schedule
Friday
1 p.m. – Liberty at No. 5 Kentucky
5 p.m. – Notre Dame vs. Washington

Sunday
11 a.m. – Consolation Match
3 p.m. – Championship Match

Flames News and Notes
• Liberty (13-11, 6-2 ASUN in 2022) and No. 5 Kentucky (26-8, 10-2 SEC in 2022) will meet for the first time in program history.
• Liberty has never faced Notre Dame (16-13, 5-7 ACC in 2022).
• The Flames have matched up with Washington (18-12, 2-6 PAC-12 in 2022) just once in 2019, losing 4-3 to the Huskies on the road.
• All four teams competing at the event finished among the top-75 teams in the nation at the end of the 2022 season: No. 7 Kentucky, No. 38 Notre Dame, No. 39 Washington and No. 66 Liberty.
• The Flames competed at the 2022 ITA Kickoff Weekend, Jan. 29-30 in Columbia, S.C. Liberty faced Duke and LSU, falling in both matches.
• Liberty’s Christiaan Worst earned a singles win against Duke at last year’s ITA Kickoff Weekend, defeating the Blue Devil’s Connor Krug in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3.
• The Flames fought to a 4-3 loss to LSU in the consolation contest. Worst earned his second singles win of the weekend, beating the Tigers’ Boris Kozlov 6-4, 6-2.
• Liberty (2-1) is coming off a 6-1 win over Queens (0-4), Wednesday at the Liberty Indoor Tennis Center to begin ASUN conference play 1-0.
• The Flames are the two-time defending ASUN Conference champions and were picked to finish first in the league in the 2023 ASUN Men’s Tennis Preseason Coaches Poll.
• Liberty is 0-4 all-time at ITA Kickoff Weekend. The Flames faced Duke and LSU in 2022 and No. 6 Texas and Arizona in 2021.

Main Photo at Top of Story: Christiaan Worst (left) and Josh Wilson (right)