Sunday, 08/09/2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The ITA/USTA National Summer Championships begin this Saturday, August 8th at the Indiana University Varsity Tennis Courts. The ITA/USTA National Summer Championships are the pinnacle of the ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit, which was played at 27 regional sites throughout the country last month.

Indiana University will be well represented at the event as 12 Hoosiers are set to compete in the singles draws, nine members of the men's team and three women's players.

Five returning men's players in Maxime Armengaud, Santiago Gruter, Will Kendall, Jeremy Langer and Stephen Vogl are in the field as well as four incoming freshmen: Tommy Aliber, Isade Juneau, Joshua MacTaggart and Alex Vanglis.

For the IU women's team Charlotte Martin, Lindsey Stuckey and Katya Zapdalova entered the singles competition. Armengaud and Zapadalova are each 9-16 alphabetical seeds in their respective draws.

A record 2,976 players participated in ITA Summer Circuit events this year.
Over 25,000 men and women have competed in circuit events since it began in 1993.

The circuit is the brainchild of Indiana head women's tennis coach Lin Loring and provides college tennis players the opportunity to compete in organized events virtually year round. It is made up of seven regional circuits (East, Southeast, Midwest, Central, Mountain, Southwest and West) and each region consists of four consecutive tournaments played during the month of July, leading up to the ITA/USTA National Summer Championships, August 8-12.

This week's top four men's seeds are: Alex Clayton (Stanford), Lee Singer (Virginia), Shuhei Uzawa (Ohio State), and Kallim Stewart (UCLA). The top four women's seeds are: Kristy Frilling (Notre Dame), Jackie Wu (Vanderbilt), Jennifer Stevens (Virginia), and Kirsten Flower (Ohio State).

The singles and doubles champions from the ITA/USTA National Summer Championships earn wild cards into the first national tournaments of the 2009-10 collegiate tennis season - the D'Novo Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships in early October. This is the eighth straight year IU is serving as tournament host (admission is free). IU associate head women's tennis coach Ramiro Azcui is serving as tournament director.