Sept. 27, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The university of New Mexico men’s tennis team will travel to Minneapolis, Minn. on Thursday to compete in the University of Minnesota’s Fall Invitational which kicks off on the 29th. Max Jones, Kamil Pajkowski, and Johnny Parkes will then travel to Tulsa, Okla. to participate in the qualifying rounds of the Polo Ralph Lauren All-American Tennis Championships that start on the 30th.
In Minnesota younger players like sophomores Chandler Brass, Graeme Kassautzki, and Miles Bugby will likely see action in every day of the three day event, while some of the team that will make the trip to Tulsa likely will see sporadic action.
2006 POLO RALPH LAUREN ALL-AMERICAN TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPSThis is the first of three national championship events during the 2006-07 collegiate tennis season. Two others are the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships in November and the season-ending NCAA Championships in May. The women’s equivalent to the All-American, the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships presented by Fila, takes place at the same time in California.
SCHEDULE OF PLAYPrequalifying (must win 3 matches to advance to “Qualifying”)Sept. 30 – First and Second Round SinglesOct. 1 – Third/Qualifying Round SinglesQualifying (must win 3 matches to advance to “Main Draw”)Oct. 2 – First Round SinglesOct. 3 – Second Round Singles, and First and Second Round DoublesOct. 4 – Third/Qualifying Round Singles and DoublesMain Draw (players who lose in 1st round will compete in Consolation draw)Oct. 5 – First and Second Round Singles, First Round DoublesOct. 6 – Third Round Singles, Second and Quarterfinal Rounds DoublesOct. 7 – Quarterfinal and Semifinal Singles, Semifinal DoublesOct. 8 – Championship Matches, Singles and Doubles
TOURNAMENT PREVIEWTU Set to Host Men’s Polo Ralph Lauren All-American TournamentTulsa, Oklahoma – Tennis’ top collegiate men’s players are slated to compete at the Polo Ralph Lauren All-American Tennis Championships at the University of Tulsa’s Michael D. Case Tennis Center, from October 5-8. The event kicks off the 2006-07 collegiate tennis season and will be sponsored by Polo Ralph Lauren for the second straight year.
Polo Ralph Lauren will outfit all court officials, line judges and ball persons in the five inch polo ponies that have galloped their way on to the tennis courts at the US Open this past summer.
The nation’s top players and doubles teams will be heading to Tulsa for this year’s championships. Highlighting this year’s singles field will be Georgia’s John Isner, the tournament’s defending champion and No. 1 seed. Isner, a senior from Greesboro, N.C. and three-time ITA All-American, will be looking to become only the second player to win titles in consecutive years and first since Georgia’s Al Parker in 1989-90. Also highlighting this year’s field will be top-eight seeds: Miami’s Luigi D’ Agord, the 2006 ACC Player of the Year; Georgia’s Travis Helgeson; 2006 NCAA singles finalist Somdev Devvarman of Virginia; host Tulsa’s Arnau Brugues, last season’s ITA National Player to Watch; Erling Tveit of Mississippi; Jerry Makowski of Texas A&M; and Daniel Byrnes of Oklahoma State. All told, 36 of the top 40 players from the Fila national singles rankings will be competing in Tulsa.
The doubles field includes defending NCAA champs Kevin Anderson and Ryan Rowe of Illinois and defending All-American champs Marco Born and Andreas Siljestrom of Middle Tennessee, who are No. 1 and 3, respectively in the preseason rankings.
The Polo Ralph Lauren All-American Tennis Championships include five days of qualifying events that precede the October 5-8 main draw. A 128-player prequalifying tournament takes place Sept. 30-Oct. 1. This feeds into 128-player and 64-doubles team qualifying tournaments Oct. 2-5, which then feeds into the 64-player, 32-doubles team main draws.
Past participants include current professional stars such as recent US Open quarterfinalist James Blake (in 1998 as a sophomore at Harvard) and Bob and Mike Bryan (in 1997 as sophomores at Stanford), the world’s top-ranked doubles team.
As the governing body of collegiate tennis the ITA promotes both the athletic and academic achievements of the collegiate tennis community. The ITA, which was founded in 1956 and is based in Skillman, N.J., administers numerous regional and national championships, the ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit presented by the USTA, and the Fila Collegiate Tennis Rankings for men’s and women’s tennis at the NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA and Junior College levels. The ITA also has a comprehensive awards program for players and coaches to honor excellence in academics, leadership and sportsmanship. The official ITA website is www.itatennis.com.