Oct. 16, 2013
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Fall tournaments may be business as usual for the Irish men’s tennis team, but head coach Ryan Sachire says this weekend’s travel has a little “added buzz.”
Notre Dame will make the trip to Columbus, Ohio for the USTA/ITA Midwest Regional Championships, hosted by Ohio State at the Varsity Tennis Center and Racquet Club of Columbus.
This tournament holds importance in the fall season for a couple reasons. The winners of the doubles and singles brackets will both get an automatic bid to the national indoor championships in New York City in November. What’s more, this tournament gives the Irish a chance to compete against strong opponents that they will see again in regular season play in the spring.
“A lot of these teams are on our schedule,” Sachire says. “It’s a lot of Big 10 opponents and a lot of conference opponents–it’s a lot of good teams. You certainly want to do well because this is a lot of our rival schools.”
On the singles side, there is both a main draw and a qualifying draw. Notre Dame has six players in the main draw, including the second-seeded senior Greg Andrews, and four players in the qualifying draw. There are also six doubles teams competing for it all at the Regional Championships.
The most important thing, according to Sachire, is that the Irish continue to improve their game and gain as much experience out of the six-day tournament as possible.
“We’re treating it just like every other event this fall,” he explains. “We’re looking for guys to be better than they were in the last tournament that they played and to make progress that we’ve hopefully helped them make in practice throughout the last couple weeks.”
The qualifying round begins at 8 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 17. The singles and doubles main draws both get underway Friday afternoon. Keep up to date with Notre Dame’s results on Facebook, Twitter, and here at UND.com.
Singles Qualifying Round
- Senior Michael Fredericka
- Sophomore Kenneth Sabacinski (seeded 16th)
- Sophomore Eric Schnurrenberger (seeded fourth)
- Sophomore Nicolas Montoya
Singles Main Draw
- Freshman Josh Hagar
- Freshman Eddy Covalschi
- Sophomore Quentin Monaghan (seeded fifth)
- Sophomore Alex Lawson
- Senior Ryan Bandy
- Senior Greg Andrews (seeded second)
Doubles Draw
- McCoy-Montoya
- Lawson-Andrews (seeded fourth)
- Barnard-Fredericka
- Covalschi-Sabacinski
- Hagar-Monaghan
- Schnurrenberger-Dooley (seeded 13th)
–Lauren Chval, Media Relations Assistant
–ND–