Gustavus Adolphus will host the ninth annual ITA Division III Indoor Championships Feb. 20-22
Gustavus Adolphus College is set to host the ninth annual Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) National Division III Indoor Championship at the Swanson Tennis Center in St. Peter, Minnesota. Eight of the top 15 teams in Division III tennis will play off to determine the 2009 ITA National Indoor Champion. The four-time ITA Indoor champions Golden Gusties will defend their 2008 title as the #6 seed entering the tournament.
Joining Gustavus (#9 in the current ITA Div. III poll), will be Washington University of St. Louis, Missouri (#1), Emory University of Atlanta, Georgia (#2), Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges of Claremont, California (#3), the University of California at Santa Cruz (#4), Kenyon College of Gambier, Ohio (#8), the University of Mary Washington of Fredericksburg, Virginia (#10), and Trinity University of San Antonio, Texas (#12). Kenyon is appearing in the ITA Indoor Championships for the first time.
The tournament will begin on Friday morning with #1 Washington University (Missouri) facing #8 Trinity (Texas) and #4 UC-Santa-Cruz will battle #5 Kenyon at 11:30 am. In the afternoon, #2 Emory plays #7 Mary Washington and #3 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps takes on #6 Gustavus. The afternoon matches are slated to begin at 5:00 pm. Saturday’s schedule has the losers of Friday’s matches playing in consolation matches beginning at 8:30 am, while the winners will play in semifinal matches beginning at 2:00 pm. Consolation finals are slated to start at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. The third place and championship matches will begin at 9:00 am on Sunday morning.
Many of the top players in Division III will be taking part in the tournament including five of the top 10 ranked singles players. Some of the top ranked players include John Watts of Washington University (Missouri), Chris Goodwin of Emory, Mike Greenberg of Kenyon, Max Liberty-Point of UC-Santa Cruz, and John Kauss of Gustavus.
In doubles play, seven of the top 10 tandems in the country will be present including John Kauss and Mike Burdakin of Gustavus, Chris and Michael Goodwin of Emory, Bobby Cocanougher and Cory Kowal of Trinity (TX), Max Liberty-Point and Ilya Gendelman of UC-Santa Cruz, Guillaume Schils and Lawrence Wang of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, and two duos from Washington University (Missouri) in the team of Charlie Cutler and Chris Hoeland and the team of Isaac Stein and Max Woods.
This will be the seventh consecutive year that the ITA Division III Indoor Championships have been held at the Swanson Tennis Center on the campus of Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota.
ITA Indoor Championship Website