Sept. 16, 2004
Tom Fallon Invitational
Courtney Tennis Center Notre Dame, IN
Thursday
Notre Dame vs. William & Mary, singles & doubles, 4 p.m.
Friday
ND Blue vs. Purdue, singles, 9 a.m.
Maryland vs. William & Mary, singles, 9 a.m.
ND Gold vs. Drake, singles, 11 a.m.
ND Blue vs. William & Mary, singles, 1 p.m.
ND Gold vs. Maryland, singles, 3 p.m.
Drake vs. Purdue, singles, 3 p.m.
ND Gold vs. Maryland, doubles, 5 p.m.
Drake vs. Purdue, doubles, 5 p.m.
ND Blue vs. William & Mary, doubles, 5 p.m.
Saturday
ND Blue vs. Maryland, singles, 9 a.m.
ND Gold vs. Purdue, singles, 9 a.m.
Drake vs. William & Mary, singles, 11 a.m.
ND Blue vs. Maryland, doubles, 1 p.m.
ND Gold vs. Drake, doubles, 1 p.m.
William & Mary vs. Purdue, doubles, 1 p.m.
ND Blue vs. Purdue, doubles, 2:30 p.m.
William & Mary vs. Maryland, doubles, 2:30 p.m.
ND Gold vs. Drake, doubles, 2:30 p.m.
Sunday
Notre Dame vs. Purdue, singles, 9 a.m.
Maryland vs. Drake, singles, 9 a.m.
Notre Dame vs. Maryland, doubles, 11 a.m.
Purdue vs. Drake/Notre Dame, doubles, 11 a.m.
NOTRE DAME MEN’S TENNIS OPENS SEASON THIS WEEKEND WITH TOM FALLON INVITATIONAL: The University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team will open the 2004-05 campaign this weekend by playing host to its lone home fall tournament, the Tom Fallon Invitational, slated for Thursday-Saturday at the Courtney Tennis Center. The Irish will welcome four other schools to take part in “hidden dual” action, beginning at 4 p.m. (EST) on Thursday. Notre Dame finished 2003-04 with a 15-9 record and national ranking of 33rd after winning its fourth BIG EAST title and gaining a berth in the NCAA tournament for the 13th time in 14 years.
THE TOM FALLON INVITATIONAL: For the 35th consecutive fall, a number of tradition-steeped men’s tennis programs will converge on the Courtney Tennis Center to take part in the Tom Fallon Invitational. The event was born in the fall of 1970 when legendary Irish head coach Tom Fallon prevailed upon the Notre Dame athletic department to add a fall season to the men’s tennis schedule. The first of 18 Irish Invitationals took place that year. When Fallon retired in 1987 after 31 years guiding the Notre Dame program, the event was renamed the Tom Fallon Invitational in his honor. Fallon compiled a 514-194 (.726) record and helped the Irish to a share of the 1959 national championship. He was inducted into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Hall of Fame in 1988.
Initially conceived of as a dual-match tournament, the event was changed first to a series of singles and doubles flights and finally to a “hidden dual” format, in 2000. Teams play simulated matches against each other, but there are no team scores recorded. Third sets will be replaced by match tiebreakers, while all individual results are counted for ranking purposes. This year’s event is the earliest Tom Fallon Invitational since the fall of 1994, when it was contested from Sept. 16-18.
This year’s tournament will feature Drake, Maryland, Purdue, William & Mary, and the Irish. Notre Dame will get underway on Thursday at 4 p.m. against the Tribe for both singles and doubles action, and the Irish will split their roster into two squads (Gold and Blue) in seeing a great deal of action the rest of the weekend (see above schedule).
THE 2004-05 IRISH: Notre Dame returns six of its top eight players from last year’s team that was 15-9 and won the BIG EAST Conference championship. Though the Irish lost to graduation their top two players from a year ago – Luis Haddock and Matthew Scott – back are senior co-captain Brent D’Amico (Castle Rock, Colo./St. Stephen’s Episcopal School [TX]), who has been a major contributors throughout his career, including at Nos. 3 and 4 singles and No. 1 doubles in ’04. He was the team’s MVP in 2002-03. Also returning is one of last year’s team co-MVPs, sophomore Stephen Bass (Bronxville, N.Y./Iona Preparatory School), who was Notre Dame’s most consistent winner a season ago, ending up with a 22-7 record, including 16-5 in dual action at Nos. 3 and 4. Bass, just three points from victory, won 12 straight points to clinch the BIG EAST title, and he finished his rookie year with a 10-0 mark in three-set matches. Sophomore Barry King (Dublin, Ireland/Gonzaga College) played mostly No. 5 singles for the Irish last season, while current junior Eric Langenkamp (Scarsdale, N.Y./Scarsdale H.S.) and sophomore Ryan Keckley (South Bend, Ind./Riley H.S.) split time at No. 6. Junior Patrick Buchanan (Fullerton, Calif./Servite H.S.) saw limited dual-match action in 2004 after being a regular singles contributor as a freshman. Notre Dame also has added three newcomers who could compete for playing time: Sheeva Parbhu (Omaha, Neb./Millard North H.S.), Andrew Roth (Houston, Texas/Tenney School), and Yuichi Uda (Wesley Chapel, Fla./Laurel Springs School [CA]).
D’AMICO, CHIMERAKIS NAMED CO-CAPTAINS FOR 2004-05: Seniors Brent D’Amico (Castle Rock, Colo./St. Stephen’s Episcopal School [TX]) and Nick Chimerakis (North Palm Beach, Fla./The Benjamin School) have been named the Notre Dame men’s tennis team captains for the 2004-05 season by a vote of their teammates. D’Amico will serve as a captain for the second year in a row, while Chimerakis enters a small group of players who joined the Irish as walk-ons and eventually ascended to the captaincy.
IRISH HEAD COACH: Bob Bayliss, who signed a multi-year contract extension in the offseason, is in his 18th year at Notre Dame with a 309-149 (.676) record and his 36th year as a collegiate head coach with a 591-243 (.709) mark. He ranks fourth among active NCAA Division I coaches in career victories and has had just one losing season in his career. Bayliss is one of just four Division I mentors to have led his current team to 13 NCAA tournaments in the last 14 years. His squads have finished in the top 20 nine times in the past 15 years, advancing to the NCAA round of 16 on five occasions, highlighted by a quarterfinal appearance in 1993 and a national runner-up finish in ’92. Bayliss, named national coach of the year in 1980 and ’92, is a four-time Midwest Region coach of the year and has been honored as his conference’s top coach on 11 occasions, including his fourth BIG EAST honor a year ago. In his time at Notre Dame, Bayliss’ teams have won 11 conference titles, while his players have earned All-America honors 17 times, won eight national ITA awards, and earned 16 invitations to the NCAA singles championship and 11 to the NCAA doubles tournament. A member of the University of Richmond Athletics Hall of Fame, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English while playing tennis and basketball, Bayliss began his coaching career at Navy, where he coached for 11 years. He coached at MIT for three years before coming to Notre Dame in 1988.
KEEPING UP WITH NOTRE DAME TENNIS: For the fastest results of Notre Dame tennis matches, call the Notre Dame sports hotline at (574) 631-3000 and choose #8. The hotline provides schedule and results information for varsity sports and serves as a supplement to the game recaps and weekly releases provided on the official athletic website at www.und.com. The hotline is the first medium updated with the results of each Notre Dame tennis match. In addition, media members and fans may be added to the sports information e-mail release list by contacting Bo Rottenborn (rottenborn.2@nd.edu), who also can provide any information about the Irish tennis program.