Oct. 3, 2007
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Senior Michael James (Clifton, Va.) and junior Adam Slagter (Austin, Texas) will kick off action at the 2007 ITA Polo Ralph Lauren All American Tennis Championships in Tulsa, Okla. on Thursday.
James will be the first member of the Penn State tennis program to compete in the 64-player main singles draw at the prestigious tournament since Mark Barry in 2005. Barry advanced to the consolation quarterfinals that season. He will also team up with Slagter to take part in 32-player main doubles draw in Tulsa. Tennis' top collegiate men's players are slated to compete in the tournament at the University of Tulsa's Michael D. Case Tennis Center, from Oct. 4-7.
"Coming off winning the ECAC Championships, I would expect Adam and Michael to play really loose, and with a great deal of confidence in Tulsa," said head coach Todd Doebler. "It will be exciting to see how they do against the country's best players."
In the first round, James will take on fourth-seeded Travis Helgeson from Georgia at 10 a.m. James, who was a member of the 2007 All-Big Ten Team, heads into the weekend with a 6-1 record this fall. He went a perfect 4-0 at the No. 1 spot at the ECAC Championships over the weekend to help lead Penn State to its first-ever ECAC crown. James finished his junior season with a 27-8 overall record, a 16-6 mark in duals and a 6-4 record in the Big Ten. James, who finished the season ranked 59th in the ITA National Singles Rankings, is ranked a career-high 35th in the first ITA rankings this fall.
Helgeson, who fell to 2007 national champion Somdev Devvarman of Virginia in the Round of 16 in the NCAA Championships in the spring, advanced to the Round of 32 last season at the All American Championships. He heads to Tulsa ranked No. 4 in the nation. Playing at the No. 3 spot in the spring, Helgeson played a big role in Georgia's team national title in May.
Slagter and James, who began the fall season ranked 36th nationally by the ITA, will play the Georgia team of Travis Helgeson and Nate Schnugg at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. The Nittany Lion team heads to Tulsa with a 5-2 mark during the fall. Slagter and James went 2-1 at the ECAC Championships with a victory over the 38th ranked Harvard team of Ashwin Kumar and Sasha Ermakov. The duo was ranked as high as 19th nationally last season.
Helgeson and Schnugg come into the tournament ranked 17th in the nation.
Two rounds of singles action will take place on Thursday, along with one round of doubles play.
Following the All American Championships, the Nittany Lion men's tennis team will travel to Princeton, N.J. for the ITA Northeast Regional Championships. The regional tournament will run from Oct. 18-23 on the campus of Princeton University.