MTN Gears Up for ITA Southern Regionals
Oct 15, 2015 | Men's Tennis
NEW ORLEANS - After a very successful stint at the All-American Championships, the Tulane men's tennis team will look to carry their momentum into the ITA Southern Regionals starting on Thurday, Oct. 15, hosted by the University of Alabama. The winner of the singles and doubles main draws of the four-day tournament in Tuscaloosa, will earn a spot at the National Indoor Championships in New York later this fall.
14 Teams from the Southern Region will converge into the University of Alabama Tennis Stadium, which serves as the main site for the event. Doubles will kick off play each day, with 9 a.m. CT start times on Friday and Saturday.
In all, there will be 128 main singles draw participants, playing in a best of three format with no-ad scoring. In addition, the doubles main draw will see 64 total teams playing in an eight-game pro set with tie-breaker at 7-7, with also a ten-point tiebreak for the third set.
"Southern Regionals is a huge tournament for us," head coach Mark Booras explained. "It is the big point of our fall because we get to play against everyone from this region and we get to play for that spot for the National Indoor Championships. These guys are all fired up about it and we're looking for our guys to make a breakthrough."
The Green Wave are off to a hot start, posting a combined 37-13 singles record thus far with a 14-8 mark in doubles. Chi-Shan Jao, Dominik Koepfer, Constantin Schmitz and Sebastian Rey spent their last week in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they competed in the ITA All-American Championships. Jao and Rey each came one singles win away from reaching qualifying, Schmitz collected three straight wins to make the main draw, and Koepfer produced the school's best finish at the tournament, reaching the championship final. In addition, Jao and Koepfer not only made it through doubles qualifying, but also reached the main draw quarterfinals.
"Overall, it was a very successful tournament for the whole team," assistant coach James McKie said. "If you look at the overall record of our guys at the All-American Championships, which is the hardest tournament in the fall, it was 22-7. I think that was really impressive and the guys need to take a lot of confidence from that. Also, for Dom to reach the final is not only a huge achievement for him, but also Tulane. We need to take this level of play, go into regionals, and set another statement to the rest of the country."
Complete list of competing team
Alabama
Auburn
Jacksonville State
LSU
Louisiana
Mississippi State
Nicholls State
Ole Miss
Samford
South Alabama
Southern Mississippi
Troy
Tulane
UAB
Players Mentioned
