COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - Five Golden Eagles will represent Tennessee
Tech this weekend in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee
Invitational men's tennis tournament, to be played at Barksdale
Stadium and nearby courts in Tyson Park.
Among the schools participating in addition to Tech and host
Tennessee will be Penn State, Louisville, Chattanooga, Xavier,
Winthrop, Alcorn, Southern Miss, Wright State, USC Upstate, Eastern
Kentucky, Dayton and Western Michigan.
Coach Kenny Doyle's lineup will include senior Syrym Abdukhalikov,
junior Vasily Eremeev and sophomores Artem Tarasov, Ezeqiel Gils
and Alejandro Augusto.
Abdukhalikov and Augusto are coming off a successful appearance
at the ITA All-Amerian tournament in Tulsa.
In doubles qualifying, the pair defeated Nikita Fomin and Danil
Zelenkov of George Washington University, 8-6, to advance to the
second round. In that advanced round, they battled Brett Clark and
William Parker of North Carolina before falling 9-7.
In singles pre-qualifying, Augusto advanced all the way to the
final round with a pair of wins, while Abdukhalikov lost of pair of
close contests to west coast oppponents. Augusto opened with a 7-5,
6-2 victory over seeded Gonzalo Blanco of USC Upstate. He followed
that with a convincing 6-3, 6-2 triumph over Erik Brunskog of
Illinois State University.
In the final round, one win from advancing into the qualifying
draw, Augusto put on a thrilling performance before bowing out in a
three-set marathon with Hunter Nicholas of San Diego State, 6-2,
4-6, 6-4.
Abdukhalikov lost to Daniel Fernandez of New Mexico State
University, 7-6, 6-2 in his first match, then fell to Derek
Siddiqui of San Diego State, 7-5, 6-2 in the bonus matches.
The tournament at Tennessee will feature three singles draws and
six doubles draws, with the draws announced Thursday evening. Play
will begin Friday morning and run through Sunday.
For fans hoping to follow the action of Tech's players, Tennessee will offer a variety of options, depending on the draws and locations of their matches. If any of the Golden Eagles play in Barksdale Stadium, there will be live video with full commentary every day.
Tennessee will also be tweeting results @voltennis_event.
Finally, UT will host a live blog all three days utsports.com
<http://utsports.com> The
live blog should be useful keeping tabs of what's happening at
Tyson Park. Friends, family and fans can also ask questions.
Complete results of Tech's participants will also be posted after
the tournament at TTUsports.com.