Tennis Competes At ITA Summer Circuit
BOULDER – A pair of current University of Colorado tennis student-athletes competed on Saturday at the ITA Summer Circuit with junior Alex Aiello and sophomore Nuria Ormeño Ruiz each winning their respective Round of 16 matches in straight sets, then fell in the quarterfinals.
Ormeño Ruiz, the top-seeded player in the main draw defeated Madison Porter of New Mexico, 6-2, 6-0. In the quarterfinals, however Ormeño Ruiz could not defeat her next Lobo opponent, as Emily Olivier took 6-4, 2-6, 1-0 (10-8) decision.
Aiello, seeded second, also received a first round bye just like her CU teammate, defeated Samantha Miller (St. Lawrence University) in the Round 16, 6-2, 6-0, then dropped her next match to Natasha Smith (New Mexico), 6-2, 6-2.
In the women’s doubles main draw, May 2014 CU graduate Winde Janssens teamed with Seattle University and Denver native sophomore Kelli Woodman to win the eight-team draw.
Janssens/Goodman defeated Madison Porter (New Mexico) and Meagan Monaghan (Southern Illinois), 8-3 in the opening round, then ousted Anastasiya Joyner (Arrow Park Early College HS) and Marjorie Antohi (Bridgeway Academey, El Paso), 8-3 in the semifinals.
In the finals, Janssens/Woodman edged Kathleen Kuosman (Claremont McKenna College) and CU sophomore Nuria Ormeño Ruiz, 8-6.
The University of Colorado tennis program is hosting one of three Mountain Region stops on the 2014 USTA/ITA Summer Circuit, Saturday through Monday (July 12-13) at the South Campus Tennis Courts. It’s the seventh straight summer CU is hosting the event.
The tournament will feature men’s and women’s singles and doubles play and will showcase a combination of college players (current and past) and junior competitors.
Please log on to the women’s tennis site at www.CUBuffs.com for updated draws at the end of each days competition.
Last summer, Janssens won the singles title, and in doubles, she teamed up with then-freshman Dhany Quevedo to win the doubles event.
The event is open to the public and presents a great opportunity for tennis fans to come and watch skilled competitors of all ages during the summer months.
Student-athletes from CU, Boise State, Bowdoin College, Creighton, Kansas, Metro State, New Mexico, Rollins College, Seattle University, Southern Illinois, and Niwot High School, as well as a number of junior tennis players are scheduled to compete this weekend.
CU is the second of three stops for the Mountain portion of the Summer Circuit. The University of New Mexico hosted the event on June 28-30, while the University of Denver will host July 19-21.
The ITA Summer Circuit is currently made up of nine regional circuits (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, Central, Mountain, Texas, Northern California and Southern California) consisting of four consecutive open tournaments played during the month of July, leading up to the ITA/USTA National Summer Championships in Bloomington, Indiana in August.
In all, 36 events are played leading up to the 2014 ITA/USTA National Summer Championships, which will be hosted by Indiana University from August 9-12. The Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) system will be used to seed players at these events, as part of UTR’s expanded partnership with the ITA.
The UTR system rates players independent of age, gender, section, level of education or country. Weekly results from the ATP, WTA, ITF, ITA and USTA are fed into the UTR system, which already includes ratings of more than 120,000 players around the world.
The latest news on this year’s ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit can be found on the ITA website at www.itatennis.com.
Nearly 30,000 men and women have competed in ITA Summer Circuit events since it began in 1993. The circuit provides college (and junior and alumni) players the opportunity to compete in organized events virtually year round. Although the primary focus of the circuit is to provide incoming freshmen and collegiate players the chance to compete in the summer months, for NCAA compliance purposes, the events within the ITA Summer Circuit are categorized as “open”; therefore anyone is eligible to compete in these events as long as he/she is a current ITA member.
For complete coverage of the 2014 ITA Summer Circuit, presented by the USTA, including access to draws, live scores and more, please visit the official ITA event page. Follow the ITA on Twitter, @ITAtennis, or like the ITA Facebook page for updates and news. Use the hashtag #ITASummerCircuit for all tweets in regards to the event, or search the term "ITASummerCircuit" to find others who are tweeting about the circuit.