No. 12 Men's Tennis Set for ITA National Indoor Championship
Cards will face No. 6 UCLA in Friday's first round action
 
Rex Ecarma


Rex Ecarma

Feb. 16, 2011

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The No. 12 ranked Louisville men's tennis team will travel to Seattle, Wash. to participate in the ITA National Indoor Championship Feb. 18-21. They will face No. 6 UCLA in the first round of play on Friday, Feb. 18. The winner will meet either No. 14 Georgia or No. 3 Tennessee in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Click here to follow the Cards at the ITA National Team Indoors Tournament Central

The Cardinals (8-1) earned their spot in the championship by defeating #45 Columbia and #18 Mississippi during the ITA Kick-off Weekend tournament Jan. 29-30 at the Bass Rudd Tennis Center. The victory marked the second time in program history (and second year in a row) that the Cards advanced to the Indoor Championship.

About Louisville
Louisville enters the match at No.12 in the ITA team rankings. Leading the Cardinals are seniors Austen Childs and Viktor Maksimcuk who are both ranked in the ITA singles poll. Childs ranks at No. 11 while Maksimcuk comes in at No. 100. The Cardinals also have two doubles pairs in the national rankings with Austen Childs and Maksimcuk at No. 27 and the pair of Simon Childs and Andrew Carter at No. 50.

About UCLA
No. 6 UCLA (7-0) has four players ranked in the ITA singles rankings including No. 32 Nick Meister, No. 63 Daniel Kosakowski, No. 84 Amit Inbar and No. 87 Maxime Tabatruong. The Bruins also have two teams ranked in doubles with Amit Inbar and Nick Meister at No. 17 and Amit Inbar and Adrien Puget at No. 75.

This will be the first time the Cards and the Bruins have faced each other.

"I hope the fans will watch the U of L men's tennis coach's show on our website as Sean Moth and I analyze the field of the National Indoor Championship," said U of L head coach Rex Ecarma. "UCLA has the longest consecutive streak in qualifying for this tournament. We ended the second-longest streak at 17 against Mississippi in the Kick-off Weekend. Our first round matchup represents a traditional giant in our sport against an up and coming program. It may be the most interesting matchup of the first day."

About the ITA National Indoor Championship
Sixteen teams will be competing in Seattle for the Indoor crown. Along with Louisville and UCLA are Duke, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio State, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, USC, Virginia, and Washington. The Cavaliers of Virginia are the three-time defending champions of the National Indoor Championship.

 

 

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