Oct. 20, 2005
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Notre Dame sophomores Andrew Roth (Houston, Texas/Tenney School) and Yuichi Uda (Wesley Chapel, Fla./Laurel Springs School [CA]) both won three-set affairs in qualifying action on Thursday in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Midwest Championships at the University of Michigan’s Varsity Tennis Center. Both players stand two more victories away from berths in the 64-player main draw of the tournament.
Roth – looking to qualify for the singles main draw for the second consecutive season – defeated Michigan State freshman Alex Forger 4-6, 6-4, 7-5. Uda, making his debut in the tournament, prevailed 6-2, 1-6, 7-5 against Brett Taylor, who played Nos. 5 and 6 for Iowa last spring.
Roth, the No. 15 seed in a qualifying draw that will send eight players into the main draw, now stands 5-1 on the season. He will next take on Scott Bruckmann from the host school and a win would send him on to a qualifying-round tilt against either the second seed in qualifying, Felipe Bellido of Wisconsin, or Alex Birchmeier of Western Michigan. Uda, now unbeaten in four singles matches this fall, next has 10th-seeded Eric Hodgman of Purdue and would follow that up with a contest vs. either Stefon Naughton of Louisville or Butler’s Evan West.
The Irish already have six players – fourth-seeded junior Stephen Bass (Bronxville, N.Y./Iona Preparatory School), fifth-seeded sophomore Sheeva Parbhu (Omaha, Neb./Millard North H.S.), 10th-seeded senior Eric Langenkamp (Scarsdale, N.Y./Scarsdale H.S.), 12th-seeded freshman Brett Helgeson (Overland Park, Kan./Blue Valley West H.S.), senior Patrick Buchanan (Fullerton, Calif./Servite H.S.), and junior Ryan Keckley (South Bend, Ind./Penn H.S.) – in the singles main draw of the Midwest Championships. No other school has a pair of top-five seeds, nor a trio of top-10 seeds, nor even a quartet of top-20 seeds.
Friday also will see the commencement of the 64-team doubles main draw. Keckley and Langenkamp, the No. 7 seed, will face Adam Monich and Nick Rinks of Michigan State in the opening round. Parbhu and Helgeson will play the team of Taylor and Bart van Monsjou from Iowa, while Bass and Roth will try to upset the sixth-seeded team of Ruben Gonzales and Ryan Rowe from Illinois. Buchanan and freshman Santiago Montoya (Scottsdale, Ariz./St. Stephen’s Episcopal School [TX]) will play Mourad Filho Nabil and Nzudie Landry from Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne.
ITA Midwest Championships (October 20)Singles - Qualifying[15] Andrew Roth (ND) def. Alex Forger (Michigan State) 4-6, 6-4, 7-5Yuichi Uda (ND) def. Brett Taylor (Iowa) 6-2, 1-6, 7-5
Note: Numbers in brackets are seedings. Numbers preceding names are ITA national rankings.