NEW YORK – The men's tennis team will take its 2-0 record on the road this weekend for a pair of matches against ranked teams at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows. The 70th-ranked Big Red will take on No. 48 Alabama at 11 a.m. on Friday, then battle host No. 56 St. John's at noon Sunday.
 
Sophomores Sam Fleck and Kyle Berman are undefeated in the early going of this season's dual matches. The tandem has won both of its matches at the No. 3 spot in doubles against Penn State and George Washington, then gone on to win its respective singles matches. Fleck has been competing at the No. 2 spot, where he beat a ranked opponent in straight sets last weekend during the Big Red's 6-1 victory over the host Colonials. Junior Venkat Iyer is the incumbent No. 1, also winning a match against a ranked opponent last weekend in No. 76 Francisco Dias. Sophomore Jason Luu has also won both of his singles matches at No. 5.
 
The Big Red has tangled with Alabama just once before in the programs' histories, with the Crimson Tide securing a 4-0 victory on Feb. 26, 2012 at the Blue-Gray Invitational. Alabama is 4-1 this season, coming off a pair of neutral-site victories on Jan. 27 against New Mexico and Penn State in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Tide's lone loss came the day prior, when it dropped a 4-3 decision to host Wake Forest. Jarryd Botha is the Tide's primary No. 1 and is ranked 79th in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, having won his last seven matches. Daniil Proskura is also undefeated in dual matches, going 5-0 from the No. 3 spot.
 
St. John's is off to a slow 0-4 start, coming off a pair of losses against No. 12 Florida and South Alabama in the program's first-ever appearance in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Vasko Mladenov and Hugo Morth are ranked 52nd in the country in doubles, while Mladenov is ranked fourth in the Northeast Region in singles. The Big Red is 12-1 all-time against the Red Storm, with the lone loss coming on April 28, 1996. Cornell won last season's clash at Reis Tennis Center, 4-3, sweeping doubles before splitting singles with victories from Iyer, Quoc-Daniel Nguyen and Alex Sidney.