Oct. 30, 2003
The 2003 ITA National Indoor Championships, the second of three national championships for collegiate tennis this season, will be hosted by the University of Michigan November 6-9. USD sophomore, Pierrick Ysern (Paris, France) has been selected to participate in this event. Ysern, currently with a preseason ranking of 59th, becomes to the first men's tennis player to compete in this since Jose Luis Noriega won the event in 1992.
The ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, the nation's premier collegiate indoor tennis tournaments for Division I men and women, will be hosted by Michigan at its Varsity Tennis Center for the first time after a nine-year stint with Southern Methodist University at the Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas.
"We are very excited for the University of Michigan to host this special event," ITA Executive Director David A Benjamin said. "It will be another great chapter for this tournament, which has a rich tradition and history, to be hosted by such an outstanding institution."
The ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships feature a 32-player singles field and 16-team doubles field for men and women, including: qualifiers from ITA Regional Championships held across the country during October, the ITA National Small College champions, the winners of the Icy Hot/ITA Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships and at-large and wild card selections made by the ITA National Tournament Committee. Overall, more than 10,000 players from nearly 600 schools participate annually in the ITA Regional and National Intercollegiate Championships.
Former Michigan tennis great MaliVai Washington beat teammate and current UM men's assistant coach Dan Goldberg in the 1989 ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor final, which was the only time two teammates have met in the men's singles final at this tournament.
The ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships were inaugurated in 1978 for the men and 1984 for the women and recent champions and finalists include up-and-coming professionals Bea Bielik (Wake Forest), James Blake (Harvard), Laura Granville (Stanford), Marissa Irvin (Stanford) and Jeff Morrison (Florida). Longtime pros Todd Martin (Northwestern) and Lisa Raymond (Florida) are also among the past singles champions.
The first national tournaments of the 2003-04 collegiate tennis season are the Icy Hot/ITA Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships, which take place October 9-12 in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Pacific Palisades, Calif., respectively. The ITA National Intercollegiates are the second, and the season-ending NCAA Championships (not administered by the ITA) are the third and take place in May.
Opened in 1997, the University of Michigan Varsity Tennis Center is a state-of-the-art indoor and outdoor complex that provides the Wolverine tennis programs with an on-campus training and competition site. The indoor facility - named the Preston Robert Tisch Building after the New York Giants owner and prime contributor to the facility - accommodates eight indoor courts, as well as coaches' offices, meeting rooms, training and locker facilities and a museum displaying the esteemed history of Michigan tennis. In 2000, the indoor courts earned the prestigious "Court of the Year Award" presented by Tennis Industry magazine.
As the governing body of collegiate tennis the ITA promotes both the athletic and academic achievements of the collegiate tennis community. The ITA, which was founded in 1956 and is based in Skillman, N.J., administers numerous regional and national championships, the ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit, presented by the USTA, and the ITA Rankings for men's and women's tennis at the NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA and Junior College levels. The ITA also has a comprehensive awards program for players and coaches to honor excellence in academics, leadership and sportsmanship. The official ITA website is www.itatennis.com.
