DURHAM – Four members of Duke's men's tennis team are competing in the 2021 ITA Men's All-American Championships, which begin Monday in Tulsa, Okla.
Duke's qualifying rounds for singles and doubles action will be played at the Case Tennis Center in LaFortune Park and will run Monday through Tuesday. The tournament will then have the singles and doubles main draws beginning on Wednesday and continuing through until the finals on Sunday.
The four All-American singles semifinalists and two doubles finalists will earn automatic entry into the
ITA National Fall Championships, slated for Nov. 4-7 in San Diego, Calif.
Duke graduate student
Sean Sculley will be joined by juniors
Garrett Johns and
Andrew Zhang in qualifying singles play on Monday, while Zhang will team up with fellow classmate
Michael Heller in the double qualifying draw later in the day.
Sculley, Johns and Zhang all competed for Duke during their last appearance at the ITA All-American Championships in 2019. The tournament was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Zhang finished 2-1 in singles action, while Johns and Sculley both finished at 1-1 and 0-2, respectively.
In this year's opening round, No. 51 Johns will face off against Texas Tech's Ilgiz Valiev at 8 a.m. CT on Monday. Sculley will battle Eric Hadigian of Pepperdine also at 8 a.m. CT, while No. 120 Zhang will meet up with Francois Musitelli of Kentucky in a 9 a.m. CT matchup.
Zhang will then join Heller in Duke's first doubles action at 2:30 p.m. CT when the pair take on South Florida's Rithvik Bollipalli and Chase Ferguson.
On Wednesday, No. 9 Sculley and Johns will lead Duke in the doubles main draw. The duo were one of 20 doubles teams to be selected to the main draw.
This will be Sculley's second appearance in doubles action at the event. In 2019, Sculley teamed up with Nick Stachowiak, where the pair advanced to the semifinals.
Live scoring and live streaming for the entire tournament will also be available via the ITA tournament page and Tulsa's athletic website.
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