ITA Men's All-American Championships
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Four University of Miami men’s tennis players will travel to Tulsa, Okla. this weekend to take part in the 2016 Saint Francis Health System ITA Men’s All-American Championships.
No. 31 Piotr Lomacki will compete in the main draw singles event, while No. 58 Christian Langmo opens play in the singles qualifier bracket. Langmo is also an alternate for the main draw. The No. 50 duo of Lomacki and Langmo will pair up in the doubles qualifier draw. Seniors Max Andrews and Jesse Flores will be playing in the singles pre-qualifier, and are on the alternate list for qualifying doubles.
“Both Jesse and Piotr had a good showing in last week’s tournament so it will be important that they recover well,” assistant coach Petar Danolic said. “As always, our expectations are for the guys to fight and play with a high intensity. Heading into this weekend, Max will be playing in his first event this season, so we are looking forward to seeing him compete for the first time. Christian has worked very hard in practice and we hope that he can transfer that energy and intensity into match play.”
As a freshman two seasons ago, Lomacki became the first Hurricane to play in the main draw of the ITA All-American Championships since 2008, when former All-American Daniel Vallverdu was the No. 3 seed overall. This season will mark his third consecutive as a competitor in the main draw. The Warsaw, Poland native came up short last season against Stanford’s Tom Fawcett, in the opening round, 4-6, 4-6.
Last week, the Hurricanes opened up their fall season, with Flores advancing to the semifinals of the Division II bracket at the Southern Intercollegiate Championships.
After improving to 3-0 to start the year, the Ontario native advanced to the semifinals with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Panu Virtanen of Vanderbilt. In the semifinals, against Louisville’s Parker Wynn, Flores dropped his first match of the year, 0-6, 3-6.
Lomacki opened up his season strong, advancing to the quarterfinals against No. 16 [2-seed] Wayne Montgomery of Georgia. Lomacki opened up the match strong taking the first set, 6-3. But in the second set the junior fell, 3-6, before falling in the final set, 2-6.
Langmo will look to bounce back this week in singles play, after dropping his opening round match-up last weekend. In doubles, the junior advanced to the quarterfinals with Lomacki against Georgia’s Walker Duncan and Jan Zielinski, ultimately dropping the match 3-6.
Andrews will open up his senior season in singles play after withdrawing from his opening round match last week in Athens, Ga., due to an injury. The native of Manchester, England will return to Tulsa where, last season, he won his opening two matches and advanced to the pre-qualifying Round of 64 where he battled Leopold Gomez Islinger of Green Bay to three sets, but came up short, 6-1, 2-6, 6-2.
Pre-qualifying matches are slated to begin on Saturday, Oct. 1, with qualifying matches starting on Oct. 3, and main draw contests getting underway on Oct. 6. The singles and doubles finals are scheduled for Oct. 10.
This marks the 12th straight year that the University of Tulsa will serve as the official tournament host, and most of the action during the two-week event will take place on the courts of the Michael D. Case Tennis Center.
The ITA Men’s All-American event page will include draw updates, links to scoring updates, live streaming and photo galleries, in addition to daily main draw recaps. FloTennis will live stream up to four courts each day of the main draw at www.flotennis.com. You can also follow the conversation on Twitter by following @ITA_Tennis and using the hashtag #TulsaITA.
Singles quarterfinalists, doubles finalists and consolation champions will receive an automatic entry into the 2016 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships on Nov. 3-6, held at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York.
Schedule of Play
Oct. 1-2
Pre-qualifying singles draw, Pre-qualifying singles consolation.
Oct. 3-4
Qualifying singles draw, Qualifying singles consolation, Qualifying doubles draw, Singles consolation, Doubles consolation.
Oct. 6-10
Singles main draw, Doubles main draw.
