‘Plucky Underdogs’ Win It All in Wheelchair Tennis

In a grueling three-hour match, the University of Houston took home its first national wheelchair tennis title at the United States Tennis Association National Campus in Lake Nona, Florida, the premier competition in collegiate wheelchair tennis.

The two-player team, Jose Arriaga and Nicholas Tijerina, won the doubles match 8-6, while Arriaga secured a 6-2, 5-7, 10-6 victory in the first singles match. The victory is even more impressive given that, with just two players on the UH roster, Tijerina and Arriaga had to play twice in every match — together in doubles and individually in singles. Most of the other teams had bigger squads and could rotate players in and out.

“We were kind of the plucky underdogs, and there were a lot of institutions ranked ahead of us early in the season,” says Michael Cottingham, associate professor of health and human performance and director of Adaptive Athletics at UH. “But Nick and Jose had a really great run, and it’s exciting for us to have that first national championship.”

In the national championships, teams are allowed one student and one nonstudent athlete. Tijerina, who’s earning his master’s in engineering, was the student player; Arriaga, a Houstonian who has been training with the UH program for several years, was the nonstudent player.

Cottingham says he hopes this victory will propel the program to new heights. Soon there will be a fully funded scholarship for one student-athlete through the One Step Closer Foundation. And over the summer, UH hosted the best 11- to 18-year-old wheelchair tennis players in the world at the ITF Junior Camp of the Americas.

“Our goal is to be a destination program, and with the resources we’re putting in place, I’m excited for the future,” Cottingham says.