UC Santa Barbara has signed Swedish standout Filip Karlsson to a National Letter of Intent, men’s tennis coach Marty Davis announced Thursday.
Karlsson, a native of Gothenburg, Sweden, has an ATP ranking of 1,594. He is ranked sixth in Sweden among juniors born in 1994 and his men’s national ranking is 32. Karlsson’s ITF ranking is 436.
“Filip has the strongest resumé of our six incoming recruits and earned his ATP World Singles ranking with a win over Fredrik Ask who played No. 1 and No. 2 singles for the University of Arizona last season,” Davis said. “We expect big things from Filip.”
Karlsson was a member of a doubles team that won the Swedish national title and he has been a national singles quarterfinalist at 12, 14, 16 and 18. He is also the winner of several regional championships in both singles and doubles. Karlsson earned his ATP point when he qualified into the Jönköping Futures Tournament and advanced to the second round.
The addition of Karlsson brings to six the number of recruits that UCSB will bring in for the 2013-14 season. The reigning Big West Champions will also add Tobias Galskov (Denmark/Foothill College), Luke Steeb (Germany), Erik Johnsson (Sweden), Teague Hamilton (Laguna Beach, Calif./Laguna Beach HS) and Corey Karen (Camarillo, Calif./Camarillo HS).
