Men’s Tennis to Compete at 2022 ITA Atlantic Regional
10/18/2022 10:09:44 AM | Men's Tennis
The Liberty men’s tennis team will begin competing at the 2022 ITA Atlantic Regional on Wednesday. The six-day event is hosted by the Virginia Cavaliers at the Virginia Tennis Facility at the Boar’s Head Resort.
All eight Liberty Flames on the fall roster will compete at the event. The Flames’ Omar El Kadi will be the first to get his tournament started on Wednesday when he play his round of 64 Bronze singles draw match at noon.
Liberty’s Zion Heaven, Thando Longwe-Smit and Deji Thomas-Smith will begin competing on Thursday (day two). Rafael Marques Da Silva, Beau Pelletier, Josh Wilson and Christiaan Worst will begin competing in singles on Saturday (day four). All four Flames doubles units will begin playing on Saturday as well.
Event/Days/Location: ITA Atlantic Regional | Wednesday-Monday | Virginia Tennis Facility at the Boar’s Head Resort | Charlottesville, Va.
Tournament Website: https://bit.ly/3Tw77Q6
Liberty Flames Players Participating: Omar El Kadi, Zion Heaven, Thando Longwe-Smit, Rafael Marques Da Silva, Beau Pelletier, Deji Thomas-Smith, Josh Wilson, Christiaan Worst
Schedule
Wednesday – Noon start – Round of 64 and 32 Bronze Singles, Round of 32 Bronze Doubles
Thursday – 9 or 10 a.m. start – Round of 16 Bronze Main Draw Singles and Round of 54 Main Draw Silver Singles, one round of consolation for first match losers of Bronze Draw (played indoors), Rounds of 16 and 8 Bronze Doubles and one round of Doubles Consolation for first match losers of Bronze Doubles
Friday – 9 or 10 a.m. start – Round of 32 and 16 Silver Main Draw Singles, one round of Consolation for first match losers of Silver Draw (played indoors), Rounds of 16 and 8 Silver Doubles, one round of Doubles Consolation for first match losers of Silver Doubles
Saturday – 9 or 10 a.m. start – Round of 32 Gold Singles, Rounds of 32 and 16 Gold Doubles and one round of Doubles Consolation for first match losers of Gold Doubles
Sunday – 9 or 10 a.m. start – Round of 16 and Quarterfinals of Gold Singles, one round of Consolation for first match losers of Gold Draw (played indoors), Quarterfinal and Semifinal Rounds of Gold Doubles
Monday – 9 or 10 a.m. start – Semifinals and Final Rounds of Gold Singles, Final Round of Gold Doubles
Tournament Breakdown
The singles Gold draw finalists and doubles Gold draw finalists will all receive berths into the 2022 ITA Fall National Championships, held Nov. 2-6 at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, Calif.
During the fall 2021 season, the ITA Atlantic Regional took on a different form, as the region was split in half. The ITA Atlantic Regional, with half of it hosted by Liberty, served as a qualifying event for the ITA Atlantic Super Regional, hosted by Old Dominion. This year, the ITA Atlantic Regional has returned to its normal format as a one-site event featuring all of the Atlantic Region’s teams.
The Flames finished last year’s Super Regional (Oct. 23-25, 2021) with four singles triumphs. Josh Wilson and Deji Thomas-Smith represented Liberty in the singles main draw round of 16. During the ITA Atlantic Regional portion of the event (Oct. 15-16, 2021), Liberty went 6-5 in singles and 2-2 in doubles on its home courts at the Liberty Tennis Complex.
Liberty’s most formidable doubles team so far has been the duo of Josh Wilson and Christiaan Worst. Wilson and Worst made program history at the ITA All-American Championships (Oct. 1-7), becoming the first duo to make the doubles main draw. The pairing posted a 5-1 record at the event, earned two ranked wins and advanced all the way to the quarterfinals in the main draw.
In singles, Thando Longwe-Smit boasts a 7-0 record between his two event appearances, the Penn Invitational (Sept. 16-18) and Elon Invitational (Sept. 23-25). The redshirt junior from Cape Town, South Africa posted a 4-0 record on the way to winning the Gold singles draw title at the Elon Invitational.
