M TENNIS CENTRAL: Southern Intercollegiates

Sept. 11, 2014

dromsky

Southern Intercollegiates

Friday, Sept. 12

Day 1

Draws

Recap

Day 2

Draws

Recap

Day 3

Draws

Recap

Day 4

Draws

Recap

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Who's Playing?
Singles: DI - Andrew Dromsky, Jess Jones, Bartosz Sawicki, Igor Smilansky, Luis Valero. D2 - Sunay Bhat

Doubles: D1 - Dromsky/Smilansky (#5 seed), Sawicki/Valero. D2 - Bhat/Jones

Tourney Storylines

Southern Intercollegiates

The Southern Intercollegiate Championships are one of the oldest collegiate individual championships, held annually in Athens, Ga.
The 2014 tournament features 138 participants from 26 schools. In addition to Tennessee, competitors hail from Abraham Baldwin, Arkansas, Armstrong State, Charlotte, Clemson, College of Charleston, Davidson, East Tennessee State, Florida Atlantic, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Gwinnett College, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Kennesaw State, Kentucky, Lander, Lipscomb, Mercer, Navy, Oklahoma, Tennessee Tech, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech and Winthrop.
There are three championship flights of singles. Five of the six Vols are playing in the top division this year. Sunay Bhat is the Vols' representative in the second division.
Taylor Patrick is the Vols' most recent champion at the Southern Intercollegiates, winning the third division title as a junior in 2011.
The Vols also ended the 2013-14 season in Athens, ending in an NCAA doubles title by Mikelis Libietis and Hunter Reese.

Orange & White Debuts

Three freshmen are making their Tennessee debuts this weekend: Jess Jones, Igor Smilansky and Luis Valero
Jess Jones: He was listed as high as 12th nationally on TennisRecruiting.net. He'll be making a homecoming of sorts this weekend. The Warner-Robbins, Ga., native will have family in attendance at the Southern Intercollegiates.
Igor Smilansky: The Israel native has achieved career-high rankings of No. 721 in singles and No. 808 in doubles. He made the singles finals of an ITF Futures event in Israel and has appeared in four Futures doubles finals.
Luis Valero: Valero, a native of Cali, Colombia, has been a true traveler of late, most recently returning from competing in the U.S. Open Junior Boys Championships, where he reached the second round of doubles. He has a career-best ITF world junior ranking of No. 71.

Two Fall Debuts

Though they started in the Vols' lineup last spring, Friday marks the first individual fall tournament for senior Andrew Dromsky and junior Bartosz Sawicki at Tennessee.
Dromsky played his first two seasons at Georgia Southern before transferring to Tennessee to start the 2013-14 year. He did not compete last fall season but started all spring in the lineup, going 10-10 in singles and 20-8 in doubles. Like Jones, Dromsky is also a Georgia native, hailing from Martinez.
Sawicki, from Poznan, Poland, became eligible in January and went 7-5 in singles and 4-4 in doubles in his first semester.
Sophomore Sunay Bhat is also playing this weekend at the Southern Intercollegiates, doing so in the Division II bracket. The Knoxville Vol played most of his matches in the fall as a freshman, winning six singles matches and one doubles match.

Year Nine

This weekend marks the start of head coach Sam Winterbotham and associate head coach Chris Woodruff's ninth season of leading the Vols together.
On the individual front in the first eight years, Tennessee has produced an NCAA doubles champion and two NCAA singles and doubles finalists, 16 All-America selections, 24 All-SEC selections and three SEC Player of the Year picks.
As a team, Tennessee has been in the NCAA Round of 16 or better in six of eight years, including the team finals in 2010. The team has finished in the top-10 nationally five times and won SEC titles in 2010 and 2011.

Meanwhile, in Latvia ...

Senior Mikelis Libietis is back in Latvia this week to represent his home country in a Davis Cup match against Austria.
He is currently scheduled to play the doubles match with Latvia No. 1 Ernests Gulbis on Saturday.
Libietis also played Davis Cup for Latvia last September in a tie against Finland, pitching in for a doubles victory with Gulbis.