D’Novo All-American Championships Next Up for Frog Tennis

FORT WORTH, TEXAS (October 2, 2008) The TCU men’s tennis team takes to the road for the second straight week to open its fall season when it travels to Tulsa, Okla., for the D’Novo All-American Tennis Championships, which begin Friday at Tulsa’s Michael D. Case Tennis Center.

The tournament, set to run Oct. 3-9, marks the first Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) singles and doubles championship events of the collegiate season. A large field will attract many of the nation’s top players to Tulsa, and the event will feature more than 400 singles players and 80 doubles teams. Competition will be split into three separate draws—prequalifying, qualifying and a main draw. The prequalifying draw leads into the qualifying draw, which leads into the main draw.

Competition begins Friday with a field of 256 players in the prequalifying bracket. Sixteen athletes will advance to the 128-man qualifying draw, which runs Oct. 6-8, while the top 16 competitors in the qualifying section will then advance to compete in the 64-man main draw Oct. 9-12.

Doubles action follows the same format, although there is no prequalifying draw. The opening qualifying bracket (doubles begins Oct. 7) will feed eight of 64 competing doubles pairs into the 16-team main section.

Those singles and doubles entries participating in the qualifying and main draws who drop their first-round matches will be eligible for the consolation round.

Forty of the ITA’s top-41 singles players will be featured in the main draw, as well as each of the top-18 rated doubles pairs.

TCU has four student-athletes who were selected for competition in Tulsa. Junior Emanu Brighiu and sophomores Zach Nichols and Adrian Simon will compete in the prequalifying singles section, while senior Kriegler Brink, rated No. 93 in the ITA singles rankings, has been selected for qualifying draw singles. The four Frogs will also pair up for the doubles in the qualifying bracket: Brink and Nichols will comprise one duo, with Brighiu and Simon will also team up. Brink and Nichols form TCU’s top-ranked doubles group, having earned a No. 40 rating in the ITA preseason rankings.

Live stats and video from the D’Novo All-American Tennis Championships will be provided on Tulsa’s official athletic web site, tulsahurricane.com.