Men’s Tennis: Four ‘Hoos competing at ITA All-American

Four members of the UVA men’s tennis team will be competing at the 2019 Saint Francis Health System ITA Men’s All-American Championships being held Oct. 5-13 at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center in Tulsa, Okla.

Freshmen Christian Alshon (Boca Raton, Fla.) and sophomore William Woodall (Washington, D.C.) will be competing this weekend (Oct. 5-6) in prequalifying, trying to advance into the qualifying tournament which takes place Monday-Tuesday, Oct. 7-8.

Junior Gianni Ross (Chicago, Ill.) and sophomore Ryan Goetz (Greenlawn, N.Y.) will begin play in singles in the qualifying tournament.

Ross and Woodall will be partnering in doubles and playing in the qualifying tournament.

Sixteen singles players, in a field of 256, advance from prequalifying singles into the qualifying draw. The qualifying draw includes 112 automatic, at-large and wildcard selections in addition to the 16 advancing from prequalifying. A player must win three rounds to be one of the 16 players to advance from qualifying into the 64-player main draw.

Qualifying doubles is a field of 64 teams with the duos needing three victories to be one of the 16 tandems advancing to the main draw.

Live streaming and live scoring will be available for the main draw matches.

The University of Tulsa is hosting the Saint Francis Health System ITA Men’s All-American Championship for the 14th straight season.

In addition to vying for the All-American national title, players will be competing to secure a berth into the 2019 Oracle ITA National Fall Championships, which takes place at the Newport Beach Tennis Club from Nov. 6-10. Singles quarterfinalists, consolation singles champion and finalist, along with doubles semifinalists and consolation doubles champion and finalist advance to the end of fall national championship.

A player from the ACC has won the Saint Francis ITA Men’s All-American Singles Championship in eight of the last nine years. Former Cavalier Thai-Son Kwiatkowski won both the singles and doubles titles in 2015. Stanford has won the most men’s singles titles with six, followed by Georgia and Virginia with five apiece. Tennessee has won the most men’s doubles titles with five, followed by UCLA with three.