University of Tennessee Athletics
Six Vols Playing in Knoxville Challenger
November 03, 2014 | Men's Tennis
SINGLES/DOUBLES DRAW | SCHEDULE
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Six current or former Vols will be representing Tennessee tennis this week at the Knoxville Challenger on campus at Goodfriend Tennis Center.
The main draw of the annual tournament starts Tuesday with matches continuing through the finals Sunday.
Seniors Mikelis Libietis and Hunter Reese both received tournament wild cards in singles and doubles and will both play featured singles matches Tuesday evening. Libietis takes on Frank Dancevic of Canada, and Reese plays American Tim Smyczek.
This will be Libietis' ATP Challenger Tour debut. The Latvian senior played world-level competition twice this fall with Davis Cup duty for Latvia in matches against Austria and Sweden. Reese played doubles at the U.S. Open in September.
Rhyne Williams (2010-11), a two-time All-American and 2011 NCAA singles finalist, is playing in the singles main draw. The Knoxville native takes on Ireland's James McGhee in the opening round later this week.
Tennys Sandgren (2010-11) hopes to be joining those three in the singles main draw. He is in the final round of qualifying after winning straight-set matches on Sunday and Monday. He was a semifinalist in Knoxville last year. He is on the road back from hip surgery that kept him out for most of the year; he returned to action in January.
His final round of qualifying is Tuesday against Marcelo Arevalo, a former Tulsa player. It is the second match on after 10 a.m.
Sandgren is also playing doubles with Chase Buchanan, a former Ohio State standout.
Senior Andrew Dromsky and freshman Jess Jones, both Georgia natives, received a doubles wild card. It is Dromsky's second appearance in doubles at the Knoxville Challenger, having played with Jarryd Chaplin last year.
The 2014 Knoxville Challenger features some of the highest-ranked competition in recent memory. Five players are in the top 100 of the ATP World Tour Rankings and all the direct entries are in the top 250.
The Knoxville Challenger is the second in a series of three indoor tournaments played at college venues to close the 2012 USTA Pro Circuit season. The Charlottesville Challenger is concluded in Virginia on Sunday, and the Champaign-Urbana Challenger in Illinois is next week.
This year, the three tournaments make up the USTA Australian Open Wild Card Challenge. The American player with the highest point total through the three events earns a main draw wild card into January's 2015 Australian Open.
General admission tickets are $10 per day.
Knoxville Challenger
Tuesday's Schedule (matches to feature former Vols)
Tennys Sandgren vs. Marcelo Arevalo - Qualifying Singles Final, 2nd match after 10 a.m.
Hunter Reese vs. Tim Smyzcek - Singles R1, Not before 5:30 p.m.
Mikelis Libietis vs. Frank Dancevic - Singles R1, 2nd match after 5:30 p.m.
