No. 7 seed Green Wave face No. 2 seed Rice Friday at 5 p.m. at the Case Tennis Center

TULSA, Okla. – Tulane, the seventh seed at the 2011 Conference USA Men’s Tennis Championship, faces No. 2 Rice in the opening round Friday at 5 p.m. CDT at the University of Tulsa’s Michael D. Case Tennis Center.

The Green Wave (11-10, 2-6 C-USA) has won three straight matches, including a 7-0 victory over C-USA rival Southern Miss back on April 3. A 4-3 setback to UAB on April 2 was the lone loss for the Green Wave in over a month.

Rice (15-8, 4-1 C-USA) enters the championship having won two straight, but lost four in a row before a 5-2 victory over SMU last Saturday.

“Rice has a lot of good wins this year and are a very experienced team, but more importantly we’ve had a great season and learned a lot about ourselves and have improved a ton,” Tulane head coach Mark Booras said. “The biggest factor is that our guys know the level that we can compete and we knew where we were a couple months ago against Rice. The guys know we’ve stepped up from there and are excited about the opportunity to play them again.”

Rice handed the Green Wave its first loss of the season, 4-2, back on Feb. 4 in a match that was moved inside due to weather.

Idan Mark and Joe Young lead Tulane into the championships with 12 singles wins each. Mark owns a 12-7 record on court one, while Young is 12-9 overall with six wins on court three. Radu Ionescu, back from injury, is 8-3 and has won both matches since his return, while Shaye Wali has improved his 9-9 singles mark winning his last five matches.

The pair of Mark and Young have also teamed together to post a 7-3 doubles record this spring.

The winner of Tulane’s match with Rice will face either No. 3 seed SMU or No. 6 seed UAB Saturday at 3 p.m. CDT.

To follow the 2011 C-USA Championship visit. http://conferenceusa.cstv.com/championships/11-m-tennis-championship.html.