Sept. 25, 2003
FORT WORTH, Texas
The TCU Horned Frog men's tennis team will see action in two tournaments this weekend as it kicks off the 2003-04 season. Rafael Abreu, Fabrizio Sestini, Daniel Scholten and Jacopo Tezza will travel with assistant coach Cory Hubbard to the adidas Invitational in Atlanta, Ga., while Robert Gallman, Collin Hart, Jacob Martin, Alex Menichini, Craig Stopa and Andrew Ulrich head south on I-35 to Waco, Texas, with Head Coach Joey Rivé to the Baylor Intercollegiate. Both tournaments take place over Sept. 26-28.
"I'm really excited about the beginning of our new year," Rivé said. "We lost Toni Gordon, who always made a great impact, from last year's squad, but now we finally have some experience down the line. The guys have been practicing very hard and are very motivated to get some good results this fall. Our doubles looks solid as well, as we seem to have carried momentum from last season to this fall.
"These two tournaments are very good places for us to start and should present challenges in many ways. Baylor's team looks strong again, and the adidas event has more of a national perspective."
The adidas Invitational features only players from teams that bear the adidas logo on their apparel. Such squads include, among others, Florida, Tennessee, Duke, Wisconsin, UCLA and Arizona State. One flight of singles and doubles will be played at the tourney, and consolation matches will take place as well. Sestini and Abreu will form one doubles duo for the Frogs, while Scholten and Tezza comprise TCU's other tandem.
The Baylor Intercollegiate features two flights of singles and doubles competition. The gold singles bracket is a 60-man field and its doubles counterpart has 30 duos. The green bracket is made up of 27 singles and nine doubles teams. Gallman, Martin and Menichini will compete in the gold, while Hart, Stopa and Ulrich will appear in the green. For the doubles, the pairings are Menichini/Martin, Gallman/Ulrich and Hart Stopa. Consolation matches will be played as well. Many of the top schools in the South Central Region will have players competing in the tournament, including Baylor, Texas and Arkansas.
