Feb. 4, 2000

FARMERS BRANCH, Texas — Notre Dame senior men’s tennis All-American Ryan Sachire advanced to the quarterfinals of the Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships on Friday before losing 6-3, 6-2 to VCU’s top-seeded and second-ranked Daniel Andersson. The 14th-ranked Sachire had beaten LSU’s 13th-ranked Tom Hand 6-3, 6-4 in the second round in his first match on Friday. Andersson improves to 26-1 in singles this year with the win, while Sachire now stands at 15-6. Notre Dame returns to dual-match play against 18th-ranked Kentucky at 3:15 p.m., on Tues, Feb. 9, at the Eck Tennis Pavilion.

The match marked the fifth collegiate meeting between Sachire and Andersson, with all five meetings coming in Intercollegiate Tennis Association grand slam events. Sachire beat Andersson in the 1997 NCAA first round as a freshman, in the ’97 ITA All-American Championship third round as a sophomore and in the ’99 Rolex National Indoors consolation singles final as a junior. Andersson’s only previous win over Sachire came in the ’98 Rolex National Indoors consolation singles semifinal.

Sachire’s quarterfinal showing marked his best in four appearances at the Rolex National Intercollegiates. He won the consolation singles draw after losing in the first round last year and dropped three-set, first-round matches to UCLA’s Vince Allegre in 1998 and Kevin Kim in 1997 in his previous appearances. In his two previous grand slam results this season, Sachire reached the semifinals of the T. Rowe Price National Clay Court Championships in September and lost in the second round of the ITA All-American Championships in October, where he was a finalist in 1998. He now has reached at least the quarterfinals in three of the four ITA grand slam events.

The Rolex National Intercollegiates feature a 32-player singles field and 16-team doubles field for men and women, including qualifiers from ITA Regional Championships held across the country during the fall, the Rolex National Small College champions, the winners of the first two legs of the 1999-2000 ITA Grand Slam (the T. Rowe Price National Clay Court and All-American Championships) and at-large and wild card selections made by the ITA National Tournament Committee. Overall, more than 5,000 players from nearly 600 schools participate annually in the ITA Regional and Rolex National Intercollegiate Championships.