Preview: ITA Atlantic Regional in Blacksburg
ITA Atlantic Regional Central | Singles Main Draw | Doubles Draw
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Members of the Virginia men’s tennis team will be competing at the ITA Atlantic Regional, being held Thursday through Monday, Oct. 18-22, at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
The tournament begins on Thursday at noon with two rounds of qualifying matches. Main draw round of 128 singles matches begin on Friday with the first three rounds of doubles to follow. Click on the Atlantic Regional Tournament Central link to see the draws.
Live stats will not be available for the matches, but a daily recap will be posted on VirginiaSports.com.
Sophomore Spencer Bozsik (Charlottesville, Va.) will be playing on Thursday in singles qualifying. Sophomore Ammar Alhaqbani (Alexandria, Va.) will begin play in singles with a first-round match on Friday. Freshmen Ryan Goetz (Greenlawn, N.Y.) and William Woodall (Washington, D.C.), sophomores Matthew Lord (Bloomfield, Conn.) and Gianni Ross (Chicago, Ill.) and senior Aswin Lizen (Douglas, Isle of Man) will all start singles play on Saturday as they have been awarded first-round byes.
Lizen is the defending singles champion, having won the title last year, and will be the No. 2 seed in the singles draw. Lizen also finished as the runner-up in the doubles tournament, partnering with Lord to win five matches and advance to the final before falling to a tandem from Old Dominion.
The Cavaliers have four doubles teams competing on Friday with Lizen and Woodall, Goetz and Ross, and Alhaqbani and Lord partnered together. Bozsik will be playing alongside fellow sophomore Jerome Romualdez (Manila, Philippines).
The singles and doubles champions will earn a spot at next month’s Oracle ITA National Fall Championships, which will take place November 7-11, 2018, at the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex in Surprise, Arizona. The Oracle ITA National Fall Championships features 128 of the nation’s top collegiate singles players (64 men and 64 women) and 64 doubles teams (32 men’s teams and 32 women’s teams). In its second year, having replaced the ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, it is the lone event on the collegiate tennis calendar to feature competitors from all five divisions playing in the same tournament.
The Cavaliers have won the singles title at the regional nine times. In addition to Lizen, Huntley Montgomery (2000), Dominic Inglot (2007-08), Jarmere Jenkins (2009-10), Harrison Richmond (2012), Ryan Shane (2014) and J.C. Aragone (2016) have all won the singles title.
Tournament Schedule
Friday
Singles Round of 128
Doubles – First 3 Rounds
Saturday
Singles Round of 64
Singles Round of 32
Doubles Quarterfinals
Sunday
Singles Round of 16
Singles Quarterfinals
Doubles Semifinals
Monday
Singles Semifinals
Singles Finals
Doubles Finals