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Men’s Tennis Heads to ITA All-American Championships 10/3/2003
Men’s Tennis Heads to ITA All-American Championships Chattanooga, Tenn. — The Vanderbilt men’s tennis team will begin play at the 2003 ITA All-American Championships tomorrow, Oct. 3, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Pre-qualifying rounds begin at 8 a.m. Friday and feed into the qualifying tournament, which starts on Oct. 7. The main draw of the tournament, consisting of 64 singles players and 32 doubles teams, will be contested Oct. 9-12. The All-American is the largest single tournament of the season in collegiate tennis, with over 300 competitors. It is also the first of three national championship events at the Division I level during the 2003-04 collegiate tennis season (the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships in November and the season-ending NCAA Championships in May are the other two). A player who begins in pre-qualifying must win seven matches just to reach the main draw. Seniors Zach Dailey, Jens Pillgram-Larsen and Lewis Smith and sophomore Greg Sossaman will all embark upon that journey on Friday. Smith’s first match will take place at 8 a.m. against Tom de Larzac of Saint Louis. Dailey is scheduled to begin play at Noon against Fernando Fieri of East Tennessee State. Around 12:30 p.m., Sossaman will take the court against Nihal Advani of Arkansas-Little Rock. Pillgram-Larsen will have to wait until 2 p.m. for his match with Michael Sperry of BYU to begin. Junior Scott Brown, ranked No. 73 in the ITA’s pre-season poll, was put through to the qualifying draw, which begins Tuesday. Junior Matt Lockin, the 35th-ranked player in the nation and 2003 Southern Intercollegiate Champion, has earned his way through to the main draw. Lockin will begin play on Thursday, Oct. 9. “This is a huge tournament. There are 256 players just trying to make it through pre-qualifying,” Coach Ken Flach said. “It will be a good opportunity to see a lot of schools from around the country stack up — this is the premier fall event. I am hoping that our guys will get a few matches under their belts and begin to gain some more confidence. In a tournament like this, once a player begins to put a few wins together, anything can happen.” — VU — |
