The men’s tennis team went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to play in the ITA Regional tournament starting on Thursday, Sept. 23.
On the first day of the tournament, the team finished the day 8-0 for singles matches.
On day two, senior Frazier Rengifo (Cali, Colombia) won two singles games. One 7-6(3), 6-1 against Maxwell Freeman (Vanderbilt) and the other against Francisco Rocha (Middle Tennessee State University) with a score of 6-3, 6-3. Rengifo fell to Tennessee’s Shunsuke Mitsui 6-4, 6-2.
“I feel amazing about my performance. In this shape/performance, I’ve been with a little bit of complications physically with some minor injuries. For me to get to the point that I did, making quarterfinals was something that I never expected,” said Rengifo.
The ITA Regional tournament spanned a total of five days with ETSU’s run ending on day three. So many teams competing resulting in good matchups for each school to prepare for the spring season.
“It is one of the most important for us individually, and also as a team. No matter who wins it, it doesn’t matter who has a better performance; at the end of the day it’s going to be for our university,” said Rengifo. “There’s only eight that go there for each team, they get prepared for this tournament, they do the best they can, stay positive and try to win it.”
For doubles matches Rengifo and partner graduate student Hugo Lobo (Toulon, France) beat Blessing Benibo and Kamil Kozerski (IUPUI) 8-6 and Kerim Hyatt and Simon Labble (UTC) 8-5, an in-conference team.
“Playing against them in regular season and playing against them during the tournament is still the same. They are a rival and opponent, we take it very seriously. We take it with as much respect, and we are trying to win it as if we are playing against them during the season. We keep the same mentality to win as much as we can, if we have to beat them in any circumstances, we beat them.”
The team is headed to the ITA All-American tournament on Monday, Oct. 5, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
