Brown Wins ITA/UTR Summer Circuit Event UNC Charlotte
July 9, 2018
2018 ITA/UTR Summer Circuit at UNC Charlotte
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For a second week in a row, South Carolina men’s tennis rising sophomore Thomas Brown outlasted the field for an ITA/UTR Summer Circuit tournament title with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Henry Lieberman in Monday’s championship match of the UNC-Charlotte men’s gold draw.
Brown opened the weekend with a 6-2, 6-2 win on Saturday morning over Joseph Schrader of NC State. In Saturday afternoon’s second round, Brown defeated Charlie Schuls for a second straight week with 6-1, 6-2 win.
The Gamecocks’ sophomore from Sumter, S.C., then faced a tightly contested semifinal match against Ben Wayand, another opponent from the previous week’s Summer Circuit event at Elon. Brown broke serve once to take the first set, 6-4 but dropped a second-set breaker and fell 6-7 to force a third. Brown came out strong in the match tiebreaker and went up 8-4 before holding on for a 10-8 win to clinch a spot in Monday’s final.
Brown got off to a slow start in the championship match against Henry Lieberman and fell behind 2-4 early before battling back to win the set 7-5. Riding a wave of confidence from his first set comeback, Brown finished off Lieberman with a 6-3 second set win to earn his second consecutive Summer Circuit title.
With the second straight win, Brown now has 700 total points in the ITA Summer Circuit points race. Brown sat in a tie for third-place with 350 points in last week’s updated points race standings.
At the conclusion of the circuit, the top 5 men and the top 5 women in the points race standings will receive automatic entry into the ITA National Summer Championships at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.
Brown will continue the ITA Summer Circuit on July 21-23 at Furman University.
For men’s tennis updates, continue to check back with GamecocksOnline.com or follow the team on social media (@GamecockMTennis).
