October 2, 2003

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Virginia Tech will be well represented the next ten days at the Icy Hot/ITA Men's All-American Championships being played at the Champions Club in Chattanooga, Tenn. The event is the largest single tournament of the year in collegiate tennis, with over 300 competitors.

The Icy Hot/ITA Men's All-American Championships include 256-singles player and 128-doubles team prequalifying tournaments played October 3-6 which feed into 64-player and 32-doubles team qualifying tournaments October 7-8. The 64-player, 32-doubles team main draw takes place Oct. 9-12. The singles tournament fields can run over 300 players, making it the largest collegiate event of the season. A player who begins in prequalifying must win seven matches just to reach the main draw. UCLA's Vince Allegre accomplished the feat in 1997, then went on to win five more matches to reach the final.

Two Hokies play Friday at 8 a.m. as Soren Spanner (So., Strandby, Denmark) faces Colt Gaston (LSU) and Reaves Robinette (Fr., Chattanooga, Tenn.) opens against Ian Kawas (Marquette). Brent Wilkins (So., Richmond, Va.), winner of the B Flight last weekend at the Charles Fluitt Invitational hosted by the University of Kentucky, takes the court for a 10:30 a.m. encounter with Rodrigo Cabriel (Rice).

At 11:30 a.m., Adel Abbas (Jr., Cairo, Egypt) takes on Sanzaruz Zaman (Alabama-Birmingham) and Stephane Rod (Jr., Lausanne, Switzerland) plays Albano Franco (Georgia State). Marten Schultz (Fr., Bjerringbro, Denmark) faces Brandon Nicholson (LSU) at 12:30 p.m. and Angel Diankov (Jr., Yonkers, N.Y.) plays at 2 p.m. against Noah Tyler (Georgia Tech).

Andreas Laulund (Sr., Odense, Denmark), ranked No. 57 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association preseason rankings, will not see his first singles action until Thursday, Oct. 9 in the main draw. Laulund opened the fall season successfully last weekend advancing to the finals of the Charles Fluitt Invitational in Lexington, Ken. Laulund/Rod will play Tuesday in the doubles qualifying round with the time and opponent to be announced later.