Sept. 27, 2017
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Following a successful season opener, members of the Penn State men's tennis team travel to Tulsa, Okla. for the ITA All-Americans tournament. The second tournament of the season will give key veterans critical experience and allow its younger players to gain experience and compete against top-level players.
The blue and white will begin play Saturday, September 30 and the tournament concludes play Sunday, October 8. Junior Constant De La Bassetiere (Reims, France), the No. 118 ranked player is coming off a successful weekend having won his flights at the Ivy Princeton Plus Invitational and heads to Tulsa. The No. 18 ranked doubles duo of De La Bassetiere and Christian Lakoseljac (King City, Ontario) are also looking to continue a hot streak after having winning their doubles draw at Ivy Princeton Plus.
"We will be hoping to build off the momentum that we established at the first tournament of the year," said head coach Jeff Zinn. "Constant will be representing Penn State in both singles and doubles in the main draw of the tournament. Christian will represent us in the main draw doubles and the qualifying singles. Both players won their flights this past weekend and will need to carry that over to this national event."
Sophomore Christos Antonopoulos (Athens, Greece) and freshman Alp Sentay (Izmar, Turkey) are ready to get back into action and fight their way into main draws after adjusting their game following this past weekend. The Lions are also ready to team together when they take the court for their upcoming qualifying doubles match.
"Christos and Alp will represent us in the qualifying doubles and both will play in the pre-qualifying singles tournament that kicks off the tournament on Saturday," said Zinn. "They both got some much needed competition this past weekend and hopefully they will get better for this upcoming event."
"Coming off last weekend's success should definitely help these guys sustain the confidence to do well at ITA All-Americans," said associate head coach Paul Tobin. "It's a huge opportunity for Constant making it into the main draw in both doubles [with Christian] and singles. Alp and Christos have to fight their way into the main draw and their competition is tough, even at the qualification level."
Following this weekend's tournament, the Nittany Lion's next action will be October 19-22 at the ITA Regionals in Lynchburg, Va. Check back to GoPSUsports and our social media pages throughout this weekend for coverage of the Lions at the ITA All-Americans.
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