Eagles send four to ITA Southeast Regional Qualifier

VIDEO: Jim Frederick Previews ITA Southeast Regional Qualifier

SUMPTER, S.C. – Four members of the Carson-Newman men's tennis team have been selected to play in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Southeast Regional Qualifier in Sumpter, South Carolina from Friday, Sept. 27^th to Monday, Sept. 30^th.

Senior Gabriel Dabdab (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and sophomore Rintaro Oka (Narita, Japan) will return to the event after both players won their first-round match in last year's contest.

"Rintaro won his first-round match and then played the number one player in the country," head coach Jim Frederick said. "[Oka] played him a pretty competitive match. I mean, [Oka] wasn't really in a place to win but didn't get rolled over either so certainly we expect the same thing from them."

Freshmen Marc Janse (Zeewolde, Netherlands) and Hugo Castets (Gradignan, France) will also participate despite neither having yet played in an official collegiate event as Carson-Newman Eagles.

The two were chosen based on their universal tennis rankings, or UTR, which rate a player's abilities based on past performances in tournaments that are officially recognized by the ITA. While these competitions all took place before the start of their collegiate careers, Janse's and Castets' ranking were strong enough to merit a birth to the qualifier.

"We're going in there with the idea of winning," Frederick said. "What they will get out of it is finding out how good this region is."

Things get started on Friday where Dabdab will play the first Eagles singles match against Justus Lehman of Coker at 9:30 a.m. and will then go up against Josh Lazenby of Lenoir-Rhyne.

Oka will face off against Gaspard Mathieu of Augusta at 10:00 a.m while Janse will play the winner of a match between Emmanuel's Juan Carlos Romero and Isaac MacMillan of Coker.

Dabdab and Hugo will team up against Hunter Horton and Tejeda of Coker for the first double's match of the day at 8:00 a.m. Janse and Oka will play together against David Akinpetide and Tomas Guedes de Almeida from Catawba at the same time.

Be sure to keep up with Carson-Newman men's tennis across the Eagles' social media platforms.