Oct. 15, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina men’s tennis returns to the courts on Fri., Oct. 16, in the Wilson ITA Regional Championships. Part of the Carolina Region, the Gamecocks head to Chapel Hill, N.C., to face 23 other schools from North and South Carolina. Senior Diego Cubas, ranked No. 28 in the nation in singles and No. 9 in doubles, earned first-round byes in both singles and doubles. Action for the rest of the Gamecocks begins as early as 9 a.m.

Freshman Harry Menzies will get this started with a 9 a.m. match against Larbi Lamzouri of Campbell. After going 1-1 in singles at Central Florida last weekend, Menzies faces the Camels’ junior, who is 5-3 so far this fall.

Junior Chris Sheehan and sophomore Ivan Machado will be next on court for South Carolina at 9:45 a.m. After dropping both his singles matches last weekend at UCF, Sheehan will look to bounce back against Appalachian State sophomore Alain Humblet, who went 4-1 in last weekend’s Davidson Invitational. Machado is also in search of his first singles win of the season, facing Andrew Brigham from Presbyterian.

Senior David Wolff takes to the court at 10:15 a.m. against Furman’s Chris Motes, who is 1-1 on the season. Senior Ivan Cressoni bids to improve his 1-1 mark with a 1:30 p.m. match against North Carolina’s Luke Mojica. In the second round, Cubas will put his 2-0 record on the line against the winner of the first-round match between Winthrop’s Diego Toledo and Elon’s Eric Turner.

In doubles action, Menzies and Wolff take on Josep Baro and Davy Sum of Campbell, who are 2-3 on the season, at 7 p.m. At the same time, Cressoni and Sheehan will combine to battle North Carolina’s Zach Hunter and Alex Rafiee. In the second round of doubles, Cubas and Machado await the winner of the first-round match between Coastal Carolina’s tandem of Alex Funkhouser and Dorian Sovic and the duo or Lukas Koncilia and Kyle Parker from College of Charleston.

The Carolina Regional continues through Monday.