Men's Tennis Selected to Host ITA Kick-Off Weekend
June 04, 2010 | Men's Tennis
June 4, 2010
SKILLMAN, N.J. - - The University of Louisville men's tennis team has been selected as one of 15 host sites for the 2011 ITA the third annual Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Men's Kick-Off Weekend January 28-31. The Cardinals will face Columbia in the first match of the weekend, while Mississippi and Tulsa will meet in the other match. The winners and losers of each match will play on the next day.
The ITA Kick-Off Weekend draft was held Thursday, June 3 as teams selected which route they would take to get to the 2011 ITA National Team Indoor Championships. The winners at each of the 15 host sites will advance to the Team Indoor Championships Feb. 18-21 ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Seattle, Wash., hosted by the University of Washington.
"One of the best rewards of a special season is being granted the host site for the National Kick Off weekend," said U of L head coach Rex Ecarma. "This is essentially the first and second round of the National Indoor Team Championships with a field that is significantly stronger than the NCAA Tournament due to the fact there are no automatic qualifiers. This means that all the best teams in our sport are competing in one event. When we won the Tallahassee Regional this past season it really got us off to a great start and the rest is history."
"The three teams in our Regional are past conference champions of the SEC, Conference USA, and the Ivy League. Mississippi was one of our losses last season," said Ecarma. "Tulsa has defeated us the last three of four times and we have never played Colombia to my knowledge. It will be a very tough region to win, but I hope the home court advantage will help us like it did in the NCAA Regionals. I always like to have a great home court slate of matches for the fans and this will be a great event for them to experience. The success of our hosting the NCAA Regional was a topic of conversation in the year end meeting in Athens, Georgia of the Head coaches nationally as well as the United States Tennis Association, Intercollegiate Tennis Association and the NCAA Tournament tennis committee. We are building a reputation of knowing how to host great tennis events."
