The Iowa men’s tennis team has traveled 540 miles to Fayetteville, Ark., with hopes of upending No. 71 Arkansas and No. 47 Santa Clara. The Hawkeyes will face Arkansas at 5 p.m. today and Santa Clara on Saturday at a time to be announced.

Iowa head coach Steve Houghton said he has respect for his opponents, and he is looking forward to the challenge.

“Arkansas has a good, long-standing program,” Houghton said. “These should be some really good matches. Arkansas has been a big name in tennis lately, and Santa Clara is ranked highly as well. We just need to pick up our play from how we did against DePaul.”

The Hawkeyes will have the luxury of playing indoors this weekend; Fayetteville has accumulated more than 24 inches of snow in the last two days. The team arrived in Fayetteville on Wednesday in preparation of the matches, and it has had two practices to get ready.

— by Ben Ross