Thursday, October 03, 2002

Chattanooga, Tenn. (October 3, 2002) - Members of East Tennessee State's men's tennis team are getting ready to compete in the 2002 Icy Hot/ITA Men's All-American Championships hosted by The Champions Club in Chattanooga, Tenn. This weekend's event is one of two pre-qualifying tournaments and is the largest collegiate tennis tournament in the nation with 360 players in the singles draw. The Chattanooga site will feature 256 singles players and 128 doubles teams, which will feed into a 64-player and 32-doubles team qualifying tournament Oct. 8-9. Five ETSU tennis players will compete this weekend in hopes of eventually qualifying for the November 7-10 championships in Dallas, Texas: Francisco Diaz (Weston, Fla.), Alejandro Salazar (Arequipa, Peru), Moises Serrano (Bucaramanga, Colombia), Federico Ochoa (Manizales, Colombia) and Diego Iglesias (Mar del Plata, Argentina). Gustavo Gomez was the last Buccaneer player to advance to the championship tournament in 2000. "Our guys are looking forward to our first big tournament of the fall," said East Tennessee head coach Dave Mullins. "It's a chance for them to play the best players from around the country, and our goal is to qualify as many individuals as we can to the next round."