By Robert McKinney, Assistant Athletics Director, Communications
WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- Members of the Willamette University men's tennis ream are set for the start of the championship singles bracket at the ITA Northwest Regional on Saturday, Sept. 22 at Whitman College. The annual tournament, sponsored by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), began with qualifying matches on Friday, Sept. 21 and will run through Monday, Sept. 24.
When the main singles bracket gets underway on Saturday, four Bearcats will be competing. Andrew Kabacy (Fr., Vancouver, WA/Skyview HS) will start out against Nishaant Limaye of Whitman at 9 a.m. (PDT). Also at 9 a.m., Aaron Schechter (Sr., Seattle, WA/James A. Garfield HS) will take on Riley Vickers from Lewis & Clark College. Gene Perle-Jones (Jr., Eugene, OR/North Eugene HS) will play against #13-seeded Luis Rojas form Linfield College at 10:30 a.m., and Colin Fisher (Jr., Caldwell, ID/Thomas Jefferson Charter School) will battle against Jack Fleming of Whtiman at 11:30 a.m.
Second round singles matches will have start times ranging from noon through 2 p.m. The round of 16 for the 64-player bracket will be held on Sunday along with the quarterfinals.
Four Bearcats fell in the first round of singles qualifying on Friday. Dropping matches on Friday were Endy Zarate (Sr., Salem, OR/McKay HS), Charles Pezeshki (Fr., Pullman, WA/Pullman HS), Ethan Frank (So, Lahaina, HI/Maui Preparatory Academy) and Luke Hiserman (So., Monterey, CA/Pacific Grove HS).
Action in the main doubles bracket also is set to begin on Saturday. Two of Willamette's team automatically qualified for the main doubles draw. Jones and Fisher will meet the #5-seeded team of Alex Namba and Luke Lemaitre from George Fox University in the first round. Also competing in the first round will be Kabacy and Schechter against Joey Hu and Reyn Miyagawa of Pacific University. Zarata and Frank as well as Hiserman and Pezeshki were completing late Friday in doubles qualifying matches.