Thursday, 10/18/2012

NEW YORK - The Columbia men's tennis team will be back on the court beginning Thursday, Oct. 18, competing at the USTA/ITA Northeast Regional Championships hosted by Yale in New Haven Conn. Over 100 players will be in action at the tournament with competition beginning Thursday at 8 a.m. with the qualifying draw and continuing through Tuesday, Oct. 23.

Six Columbia players will open play in the main singles draw. Ashok Narayana, Winston Lin and Dragos Ignat each have a bye into the second round and will await the qualifying draw and first round results to discover whom their first match of the tournament will be against.

Max Schnur, Bert Vancura and Eric Rubin are each slated for main draw first round matchups. Schnur will face Princeton's Dan Richardson, Vancura is set to take on Binghamton's Florian Van Kann, while Rubin will challenge Hugo Morth from St. John's.

Three doubles tandems will also be in action for Columbia. Narayana and Schnur, fresh off three wins over ranked opponents and an appearance in the consolation finals at the ITA All-American Championships, are the second seed and will go up against the winner of Dartmouth's Kipouras/Nordahl and Connecticut's Spreyer/Lin. Ignat and Rubin will be across the net from Marist's Bishop/Klassen in the opening round, while Lin and Vancura will see Colgate's Berkowitz/Jewett in the opening round.

Each match of the tournament will be a tough battle, as the singles and doubles main draw winners will earn a spot in the prestigious USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships.