Nov. 12, 2015
By Joanne Norell
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – A busy weekend awaits the University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team, which will have student-athletes competing in both New York and Georgia to wrap up the fall tournament schedule.
WHAT: Men’s USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships
WHERE: Billie Jean King National Tennis Center – Flushing Meadows, New York
WHEN: November 12-15, 2015
TWITTER: @NDMensTennis | @ITATennis | #NIIC
DRAWS: Singles Draw | Doubles Draw
TV: Singles and Doubles Semifinals and Championships will be broadcast on ESPN3
WHAT: Bulldog Scramble
WHO: Notre Dame, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Oklahoma and South Carolina
WHERE: Dan Magill Tennis Complex – Athens, Georgia.
WHEN: November 13-15, 2015
Below is all you need to know as the Irish prepare to compete this weekend.
#NIIC LOW-DOWN
The USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships serve as the culmination of the fall tennis season, featuring a 32-player singles draw and 20-team doubles draw made up of many of the nation’s best tennis student-athletes. Representing the Irish will be seniors Quentin Monaghan and Alex Lawson, with Monaghan playing singles and both competing in doubles. As the nation’s fifth-ranked singles player, Monaghan earned an at-large bid into the singles event, while the pair automatically qualified for the doubles draw by winning the ITA Midwest Regional Doubles Championship nearly three weeks ago. Monaghan and Lawson entered the fall season ranked No. 28 in the Oracle/ITA men’s doubles preseason rankings.
Monaghan will kick off the action in singles, playing Stanford’s Tom Fawcett at 11:30 a.m. ET. He will join Lawson in doubles at 4:30 p.m., facing Fawcett and David Wilczynski. Both doubles squads received byes to the Round of 16.
RETURN TO FLUSHING MEADOWS
Seniors Quentin Monaghan and Alex Lawson are both quite familiar with the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which annually hosts the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships. Monaghan played at the site, which hosts the US Open, earlier this fall in the American Collegiate Invitational, which featured eight of the nation’s elite collegiate tennis players. Lawson played in last year’s National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, having earned an at-large doubles bid with then-senior Billy Pecor. Lawson and Pecor reached the quarterfinals of the doubles championship before falling to Mackenzie McDonald and Martin Redicki of UCLA.
BULLDOG SCRAMBLE
The Bulldog Scramble will be a round-robin singles and doubles event featuring players from Georgia, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Play will begin at 10 a.m. ET each day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Dan Magill Tennis Center at the University of Georgia.
Bulldog Scramble Schedule
Friday
10 a.m. – Doubles followed immediately by singles
2:30 p.m. – Singles
Saturday
10 a.m. – Two rounds of doubles
1:30 p.m. – Singles
Sunday
10 a.m. – Doubles followed immediately by singles
Rankings
Four men’s tennis student-athletes appeared in the first Oracle/ITA Collegiate Tennis Rankings, with two appearing in both singles and doubles polls. In addition to Quentin Monaghan and his No. 5 ranking, junior Josh Hagar will enter the season ranked No. 114 in singles. Hagar also makes an appearance in the doubles rankings with classmate Eddy Covalschi, coming in at No. 10. Hagar and Covalschi played together throughout the 2014-15 season, compiling a 17-12 record to go with the ITA Midwest Regional Doubles crown, and ended the year at No. 35. Monaghan and Alex Lawson enter the season ranked No. 28 in doubles.
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For the latest on all things Irish men’s tennis, follow @NDMensTennis on Twitter and like Notre Dame Men’s Tennis on Facebook.
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Joanne Norell, athletics communications assistant at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2014 and coordinates communications efforts for the Notre Dame women’s soccer, men’s tennis, women’s tennis and fencing programs. Norell is a 2011 graduate of Purdue University and earned her master’s degree from Georgetown University in 2013.