MSU Men Bow Out at All-American Tennis Championships
6/21/1999 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
October 15, 1998
EAST LANSING, Mich. - After some success in the early rounds, Michigan State no longer has any representatives at the ITA Mens All-American Championship. MSU had three participants competing at the tournament held at the University of Texas, in Austin, Texas.
The ITA All-American Championships feature the nations top college tennis players. It is the second leg of the ITA Collegiate Grand Slam and is the toughest hard court event of the fall collegiate season. Competing at the University of Texas facilities is the doubles team of Greg Skorin and Nenad Zivkovic of UNLV, who won the opening leg of the ITA Grand Slam earlier this season at the T. Rowe Price National Clay Court Championships in Baltimore, along with TCUs Esteban Carril who won in singles. The main draw features 48 singles players who have received automatic births into the main draw and the 16 survivors from the qualifying tournament held this week; 32 teams square off in doubles action.
Senior co-captains Trey Eubanks (Louisville, Kent.) and Chris Struck (Okemos, Mich.) saw the most action for the Spartans. Struck opened play in the pre-qualifying round by defeating his first two opponents, advancing to the round of 64, before dropping his match with UCLAs Chris Sands. Eubanks received an automatic berth into the qualifying round where he advanced to the round of 32 and was defeated by Toby Hansson of SMU in three sets. The duo of Eubanks and Struck also teamed to compete in doubles action. They opened play in the pre-qualifying round by advancing through the first three brackets undefeated, moving them on to the qualifying round. In qualifying play, for the main draw, the seniors defeated Chris Campbell and John Deaton of Arkansas before dropping their match with Jamie Gordon and Jason Marshall of Purdue in three sets.
The Spartans were also represented in singles play by Ivica Primorac (Mosthar, Bosnia). Primorac was selected to compete in the pre-qualifying draw and made it to the round of 64 out of over 250 participants. The junior was defeated by Big Ten rival Jakub Tepley of Illinois in two sets.
This is the eighth-straight year that the second leg of the ITA Collegiate Grand Slam has taken place at the University of Texas. Daniel Anderson of VCU is the top seed of the main draw. He was a semifinalist at last Mays NCAA Championships and was ranked preseason #3 in the ITA rankings. Also competing is the 1995 ITA All-American Championship winner, Ryan Wolters of Stanford, and last years semifinalist from UCLA, Jean-Noel Grinda. The tournament concludes with the finals for singles and doubles on Monday, October 19.
The Michigan State mens tennis team does not return to action until November 6th-9th when they host the Region Four, ITA Championships in East Lansing, Mich.