SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sacramento State men's tennis sophomore Marek Marksoo was selected to compete for his home country of Estonia in this year's Davis Cup, and will become the first player in school history to compete in the prestigious event.
The Davis Cup began in 1900 as a competition between the United States and Great Britain, and is now the world's largest annual international team competition in sports, with 130 nations entered in 2013.
Marksoo, who is a native of Tallinn, Estonia, was selected as one of four players to compete for Estonia in the Europe/Africa section of the competition. In the first round, Estonia will face Ireland later this week (Feb. 1-3) in a match that will be played at the David Lloyd Riverview Club in Dublin, Ireland.
Each team will field four players, and the competition consists of four singles matches and one doubles match. The team that wins at least three of those matches will advance to the second round of the tournament. Marksoo will be playing with Estonia teammates Vladimir Ivanov, Markus Kerner and Jaan Kononov.
Since Marksoo stepped foot on campus last year as a freshman, he has been the Hornets' most consistent player. The team co-captain began last season as the Hornets' No. 5 singles player and moved all the way up to No. 2 by the end of the year. He was slotted at No. 2 singles to begin this year before being bumped up to No. 1 two matches into the season.
Last week, he was named the Big Sky Conference Player of the Week after going 3-1 in singles play, and 2-1 in doubles to open the season. He was a first team all-Big Sky performer as a freshman after going 17-3 in singles, and 10-8 in doubles.
Sacramento State, which is the reigning Big Sky Tournament champion, does not play again until Feb. 9 for its home opener against Saint Mary's.