Mustangs to play Pepperdine in First Round of ITA National Team Indoor Championship
1/25/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- The spring season of collegiate tennis shifts into full gear this weekend when the annual ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Sixty schools including Cal Poly will be competing across the country for the 15 vacant spots at the ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championship, to be hosted next month by the University of Virginia.
The 15 universities hosting ITA Kick-Off Weekend events were designated as host sites in order of their year-end 2011 Campbell/ITA team ranking. Three visiting schools will travel to each host site for a four-team tournament. The host school will meet the No. 4 seed, the No. 2 seed will play the No. 3 seed, and the winners will come back the following day to play for a berth at the ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championship.
Cal Poly will open play against host Pepperdine on Friday at 10 a.m. while BYU will play Vanderbilt at 2 pm.
Saturday will have the consolation match played at 10 am followed by the championship.
The Cal Poly – Pepperdine match can be followed live at: http://www.pepperdinesports.com/livestats/m-tennis/xlive.htm
Pepperdine is one of five schools in the Golden State playing host to an ITA Kick-Off Weekend event. The Waves may be one of the deepest teams in the entire field, with four ranked players in their singles lineup and former Top 100 player Alex Llompart returning after missing the fall while Cal Poly No. 1 Andre Dome quietly enters Malibu as the No. 22 player in the country. With great feel at the net and two handed groundstrokes on both sides, Dome defeated No. 13 Alex Musialek, No. 18 Andreas Mies and No. 26 Ignacio Taboada at the ITA All-American Championships.
BYU will enter with three ranked players of its own, led by No. 43 Georgy Batrakov, a grinder from Russia who knocked off Top 10 player Kevin King of Georgia Tech at the ITA All-American Championships. Vanderbilt hopes to have its No. 1 player, Ryan Lipman, back from injury,
