PREVIEW: Men’s Tennis set for ITA Region Tournament
HOUGHTON, Mich. – Michigan Tech men's tennis will send six players the ITA Midwest Regional Tournament, beginning Saturday, September 17 hosted by University of Indianapolis. The individual tournament with Division II players in the region features singles and doubles. Sites include Center Grove High School, Center Grove Middle School North, and Clark-Pleasant Middle School. Draws were released Wednesday.
"It will be interesting to see how we do this year at the tournament," said head coach Kristin Yep. "It has been a very positive atmosphere at practice this fall and everybody is working hard every day. They push each other and support one another which bodes well for us this season. I am excited to see how we match up against other teams in the GLIAC and other teams in the region."
Sophomore Adam Fenjiro (Rabat, Morocco) is amongst the slate of Tech student-athletes. Fenjiro played No. 1 singles as a true freshman, collected his first career win at the position and appeared in six doubles matches in the spring.
Vitor Jordao (Recife, Brazil) also returns after playing 11 singles matches at No. 2. He split time at doubles alongside Fenjiro and junior Eli Pinnoo (St. Clair, Michigan).
Ricardo Nunez (Ciudad, del Carmen, Mexico), Ambarish Rao (Irvine, California), and Nikolai Prosjanykov (Santiago, Chile) are back to compete as juniors and Leon Sell (Neuenburg, Germany) begins his time at MTU as a junior as well. Sell's brother Patrick was also a collegiate tennis player.
Depth and injuries have hampered the Huskies over the course of the past three seasons but this year's squad boasts a roster of eight and appears to be headed in the right direction after notching a 4-3 win in late spring over No. 30 ranked Davenport in GLIAC play.
The ITA Tournament consists of A, B, and C singles and doubles draws. Jordao plays Samuele Contestabile (Quincy) on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. in A Singles. The winner could face region No. 1 seed Dom Spicer (Wayne State). Spicer helped the Warriors to a National Runner-Up finish.
Prosjanykov takes on Michael Gurtner (Tiffin) in A Singles after playing No. 3 singles for Tech last season. Fenjiro plays Alfredo Berlanga (Findlay) to headline B Singles and Sell makes his debut against Oliwer Wierzbicki (Lewis), who transferred from Division I Middle Tennessee State. Rao and Nunez are in C Singles with Nunez seeded second.
Doubles pairings consist of Jordao and Sell (A), Fenjiro and Prosjanykov (B), and Nunez and Rao (C). Tech has a second opportunity to polish its doubles game when Ashland University hosts its doubles invitational on September 30, offering round robin play. The first regular season team match is February 1 against Tiffin.