Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG, Va. --- The Virginia Tech men’s tennis team will split-up this weekend to participate in two prestigious tournaments. Seven players will travel to Athens, Ga., to participate in the 41st Annual Southern Intercollegiate Championships, while four other members of the squad travel to Chattanooga, Tenn. for the 25th Annual Steve Baras Fall Collegiate Tennis Classic.
The Southern Intercollegiate Championships is hosted by the University of Georgia and is played at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. The tournament, which originated in 1968, will feature 179 participants from 32 schools, including 16 nationally ranked players and two top-10 Division II players. The event, which concludes on Monday, will consist of three singles divisions and two doubles divisions. Tech participants include Nicolas Delgado de Robles, ranked No. 75 nationally, along with Sebastien Jacques, Patrick Daciek, Jon Pine, Brandon Corace, Yoann Re and Preston Lemon. Jacques, in his collegiate debut last year, won three matches in one day to capture the Division III singles division.
Schools represented in the 2008 Southern Intercollegiate Championships include Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College, Armstrong Atlantic State, College of Charleston, Davidson, Duke, East Tennessee State, Florida, Furman, Georgia, Georgia College & State University, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Kentucky, Lander University, Middle Tennessee State, Mississippi State, Morehead State, N.C. State, Tennessee-Martin, Tennessee Tech, Central Florida, Charlotte, South Alabama, USC-Upstate, South Florida, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Winthrop and Wofford.
The Baras Tennis Classic, which will run Sept. 19-21, will mark its 25th Anniversary in 2008 as one of Tennessee’s oldest tennis tournaments. The tournament, hosted by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, will feature 24 regional and state collegiate teams at the Champions Club in Hixson, Tenn. Luka Somen, Zach Pine, Corrado Degl Incerti Tocci and Eduardo Pinto are the Hokies participating in the event.