Duo Begins Quest for NCAA Men's Tennis Title Wednesday
May 22, 2007
NCAA Singles Bracket | NCAA Doubles Bracket
Coral Gables, Fla. – University of Miami senior Luigi D’Agord (Freeport, Bahamas) and sophomore Daniel Vallverdu (Valencia, Venezuela) open NCAA singles competition on Wednesday, May 23, at the University of Georgia’s Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga.
Vallverdu (24-9), ranked 53rd in the latest Fila/ITA Poll, opens competition for the Hurricane contingent at 1 p.m. in the Round of 64 versus 9-16 seed junior Lars Poerschke of Baylor. It will be the first meeting between the two collegians, as Vallverdu – who has won two straight and four of his last five matches – returns to the court after a 6-2, 7-5 straight-sets win over No. 46 Bobby Cameron at the No. 2 position in Miami’s NCAA Tournament loss to Tennessee on May 11. Poerschke (25-8) faces a two-day turnaround after Baylor was edged by Illinois, 4-3, in Monday’s NCAA team semifinals, and comes off Monday’s 2-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Illinois’ No. 5 Kevin Anderson in the No. 1 spot.
The winner of the Vallverdu-Poerschke match will take on the winner of the Jamil Al-Agba (USC)-Ivan Puchkarov (Oklahoma State) match on Thursday, May 24, in the Round of 32. Although Vallverdu has never faced Al-Agba, he knocked off the then-third ranked Puchkarov, 6-0, 6-3, on February 17 at the ITA Indoor National Championships.
D’Agord (25-4), who enters competition with a 9-16 seed, will open his quest for the NCAA singles title on Wednesday versus South Alabama sophomore Marek Sramek (28-3) at 3 p.m. D’Agord, the reigning ACC Player of the Year for the second-straight season, advanced to the Round of 16 at the 2006 championships and enters the 2007 edition having won 13 of his last 14 matches, including a May 11 6-4, 6-3 win over Tennessee’s No. 17 Kaden Hensel. Sramek, who plays primarily in the No. 3 spot for the Jaguars, returns to the court following a 6-3, 6-2 win over Mississippi’s No. 33 Robbye Poole in South Alabama’s 4-1 NCAA second-round loss.
The winner of the D’Agord-Sramek match will face the winner of the Matic Omerzel (Georgia)-Matko Maravic (Michigan) match in Thursday’s Round of 32. D’Agord used straight sets to defeat Maravic, 6-3, 6-0, in his spring debut at the UM Spring Invitational on January 13.
D’Agord will also compete in the NCAA doubles tournament, pairing up with senior Josh Cohen (Weston, Fla./Laurel Springs), the winningest Hurricane ever with a combined 170 wins over his four-year Miami career. The 5-8 seeded duo (20-7) will open competition versus Texas Tech’s tandem of Christian Rojmar and Bojan Szumanski (9-6) on Thursday, May 24.
The winner of that doubles match advances to Friday’s Round of 16 to take on the winner of the match between NC State’s Nick Cavaday/William Noblitt and Mississippi’s Eric Claesson/Erling Tveit. D’Agord and Cohen cruised past Cavaday and Noblitt, 8-2, during ACC regular-season competition in Raleigh on April 5.
Last season, the duo of D’Agord and Vallverdu advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals before bowing out.
