October 5, 2006

TULSA, Okla. -- Two members of the Virginia Tech men's tennis team had mixed results Thursday in the main draw of the Polo Ralph Lauren ITA All-American Tennis Championships. The event is being played at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center on the University of Tulsa campus.

Arvid Puranen (Sr., Lulea, Sweden), ranked No. 34 nationally and seeded 9-16 in the event, won his first match, 6-2, 6-3, over Brian Hung (Michigan) but was eliminated later in the day, 6-0, 6-1, by fifth-seeded Arnau Bruges (Tulsa).

Nicolas Delgado (So., Madrid, Spain), who qualified for the main draw by winning three matches in the qualifying tournament earlier in the week, dropped his opening match in the main draw, 7-6 (2), 6-4, to David North (Georgia Tech). Delgado bounced back in the consolation bracket with a 6-4, 6-3, victory against Dominik Mueller (Baylor). He will play Todd Paul (Wake Forest) on Friday.

The Polo Ralph Lauren All-American Tennis Championships included five days of qualifying events that preceded the October 5-8 main draw. A 128-player prequalifying tournament took place Sept. 30-Oct. 1. This tournament fed into 128-player and 64-doubles team qualifying tournaments Oct. 2-5, which then fed into the 64-player, 32-doubles team main draws.

Tennis' top collegiate men's players are slated to compete at the tournament, as the event kicks off the 2006-07 collegiate tennis season and will be sponsored by Polo Ralph Lauren for the second straight year. The doubles field includes defending NCAA champs Kevin Anderson and Ryan Rowe of Illinois and defending All-American champs Marco Born and Andreas Siljestrom of Middle Tennessee, who are No. 1 and 3, respectively in the preseason rankings.

Past participants include current professional stars such as recent US Open quarterfinalist James Blake (in 1998 as a sophomore at Harvard) and Bob and Mike Bryan (in 1997 as sophomores at Stanford), the world's top-ranked doubles team.

Live scoring for the event is available at http://tulsahurricane.cstv.com/livestats/m-tennis/TulsaTennis.html.