Tulane University
ITA All-American Tourney
Kogan Opens Play at ITA All-American Championships
Oct 9, 2003 | Men's Tennis
Oct. 9, 2003
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Tulane University senior Michael Kogan (Kfar-Saba, Israel) won two matches on Thursday to advance to the Round of 16 of the prestigious Icy Hot/ITA Men's All-American Championships in Chattanooga.
Kogan, the No. 6 seed in the 64-player singles field, opened the event by defeating Erik Nyman from BYU, 6-3, 2-6, 6-1. Kogan is ranked No. 7 in the ITA Preseason Rankings, while Nyman holds the No. 99 rating.
In his second match of the day, Kogan found himself matched against Conference USA rival Alex Menichini from TCU. In another hard-fought match, Kogan, the three-time Player of the Year in Conference USA, prevailed, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, over the 47th-ranked Horned Frog.
Kogan and junior teammate Dmitriy Koch (Beuckeburg, Germany) were scheduled to open doubles action on Thursday as well, however, the match was postponed due to rain.
On Friday, Kogan will play Virginia's 26th-ranked Doug Stewart at 11 a.m. Following his singles match, the Wave senior will move to doubles with Koch, playing the No. 11 ranked duo in the nation, Phillip King and Stephen Amritraj from Duke.
In qualifying action earlier in the week, Koch upended SMU's Johan Brunstrom, 6-0, 6-4 in the opening round. Koch holds the No. 90 ranking in the country, while Brunstrom is No. 56.
However, in the round of 32, Koch was ousted by UL-Lafayette's Evghenii Cordineanu, 2-6, 2-6. The Icy Hot/ITA Men's All-American Championships included six days of qualifying matches leading up to the this weekend's 64-player, 32-doubles team main draw. 256-singles player and 128-doubles team prequalifying tournaments were played October 3-6 which fed into 64-player and 32-doubles team qualifying tournaments October 7-8. The combined singles tournament fields can run over 350 players and a player who begins in prequalifying must win seven matches just to reach the main draw.
The Icy Hot/ITA Men's All-American Championship, the largest single tournament in the country, offers the first national singles and doubles titles of the season, and are followed by the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships in November and the the season-ending NCAA Championships in May (the women's counterpart to the Icy Hot/ITA Men's All-American Championships, the Riviera Women's All-American Championships, is hosted by the Riviera Tennis Club in Pacific Palisades).
