SAN ANTONIO – A select group of UTSA men’s tennis players will battle their way through the draws in the upcoming week at the ITA Men's All-American Championships. The three-round, long-ranging elite national invitational tournament will be held largely on the campus of the University of Tulsa and run September 30-October 8 in totality. UTSA has five players selected to compete in the event.
This national ITA event will feature live streaming of matches via both Cracked Racquets and Track Tennis.
Representing UTSA will be senior Alan Magadan (McAllen, Texas), junior Tiago Torres (Lisbon, Portugal), junior Danijal Muminovic (Tuzla, Bosnia), sophomore Tomás Pinho (Oporto, Portugal) and senior Garrett Skelly (The Woodlands, Texas). Carrying a No. 44 preseason ITA ranking, Torres and Magadan were also announced among the 64 teams invited to compete in the qualifying doubles draw.
The Roadrunners are guided by fifth-year head coach Sergey Avdeyev and newly-minted assistant coach Dane Esses.
Beginning with 256 singles players, competition will kick off at Case Tennis Center at LaFortune Park in the opening two rounds of pre-qualifying singles on Saturday Sept. 30, followed by the third, qualifying and consolation rounds on Sunday, Oct. 1. In singles, there will be one round of a first-match loser consolation draw.
In the opening round of 256, Muminovic will be the first in action, starting Saturday against Michigan State’s Graydon Lair at 8 a.m. Next up is Torres at 9:30 a.m., facing Louisville’s Andre Steinbach. At 11:30 a.m., Pinho will take on Louisville’s Will Mayew. Magadan is set to meet Drake’s Olle Sonesson Lidholt at 12:30 p.m. Wrapping up round one for the Roadrunners, Skelly meets Oklahoma State Leighton Allen.
Complete singles draw for the championships can be found here.
Into the next draw, split between LaFortune Park and the Michael D. Case Tennis Center on the Tulsa campus, singles and doubles pairs will take on the qualifying opening rounds on Monday, Oct. 2, with the final qualifying rounds and a singles consolation set for Tuesday, Oct. 3.
For Roadrunners earning their place into the main draw, it will be a rigorous five-day event, featuring the top-64 advancing singles and top-32 advancing doubles in the tournament, starting on Wednesday, Oct. 4 and cutting down the field to the singles and doubles championships on Sunday, Oct. 8 at UT’s Case Tennis Center.
Having competed in this type of environment last year, Magadan emerged last fall as a doubles ITA South Region champion, advancing to the national quarterfinals with now-graduated partner Sebastian Rodriguez. In addition, the nationally-ranked duo earned an NCAA Doubles Championships berth in the spring and collected the program’s first postseason win with a victory over NC State's 11th-ranked pair of Robin Catry and Luca Staeheli in straight sets to advance to the Round of 16. Torres, on the other hand, represented Portugal in both singles and doubles this summer at the World University Games in Chengdu, China, advancing in the singles and reaching the doubles quarterfinal.
- UTSA -