Oct. 13, 2010

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina men’s tennis travels to Chapel Hill, N.C., for its final scheduled competition of the fall season. All six Gamecocks will make the trip to the ITA Carolina Regional, which begins Thursday. At stake for individual players from NCAA Division I programs in North and South Carolina are spots in the ITA National Indoor Championships Nov. 4-7 in Flushing, N.Y. Full tournament draws and results are located here.

Seeded 14th in the tournament, Gamecock junior Ivan Machado leads the team with his 4-2 record this fall. That mark includes a win over No. 66 Brennan Boyajian of North Carolina, seeded sixth in this event, in the Duke Fab Four Invitational at the beginning of the fall. In his most recent tournament, Machado claimed the first set from No. 20 Ryan Lipman of Vanderbilt at the Southern Intercollegiates.

Just behind Machado in the win column is senior Chris Sheehan and sophomore Alexander Kostanov. Sheehan is 3-4 overall after advancing to the consolation final of the UNC Wilmington Collegiate Tennis Invitational early in the season. Kostanov has shown a propensity for winning the tight matches. He pulled out a three-set win to advance in the fifth-place bracket of the Duke Fab Four Invitational, ultimately finishing sixth in Section A Singles at the event. Most recently, he closed the Southern Intercollegiates with a win in the consolation round of Division I Singles.

In doubles action, Kostanov and Sheehan will team up in the top of the draw, facing off with NC State’s Dave Thomson and Sean Weber at 4:15 p.m. Thursday at Duke. In Chapel Hill, Machado and Harry Menzies will take on Timion Meijs and Chanon Varapongsittikul of UNC Greensboro at 4:30 p.m., and Jake Bowling and Henry Walker are set to face Charlotte’s Morritz Bernhoestera and Charly Lecamp at 6 p.m. The singles draw has not been announced.