Men’s Tennis Opens Fall Slate at ITA Regional

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah men's tennis team heads to Provo on Tuesday for the first day of the season-opening ITA Regionals, held at BYU.

Utah will compete in singles and doubles during the ITA Mountain Regional, which takes place from September 21-25. The regional doubles champion and the regional singles champion and finalists qualify for the ITA National Fall Championships in San Diego, California from November 4-7.

The 2020 ITA Regionals were not played last fall season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2019 fall season, the Utes had Russell Benkaim advance to the semifinals in singles play at the ITA Regionals.

The Utes squad has three doubles teams seeded in the doubles draw, consisting of No. 2 Franco Capalbo/Geronimo Busleiman, No. 4 Francisco Bastias/Bruno Caula, and No. 15 Mathias Gavelin/Bruno Krenn. The fourth doubles team consists of Rian Ta and Jayson Blando, where Blando will debut as a Ute after transferring from UC Riverside. Capalbo and Busleiman are ranked 34th national in the ITA doubles rankings. The doubles team of Matt Summers and James Davis of Denver also come into the ITA Regionals ranked 20th in doubles.

Utah also has five players seeded in the singles draw, including No. 2 Franco Capalbo, No. 3 Geronimo Busleiman, No. 6 Bruno Caula, No. 8 Francisco Bastias, and No. 15 Bruno Krenn.

Utah leads the Mountain Region schools with five top-15 seeded players competing in this tournament, followed by Denver with three.

The Utah program boasts the No. 98 ranked singles player in Capalbo, according to ITA national ranking. Capalbo is seeded No. 2 in the Mountain Region and one of two nationally ranked players competing in this regional tournament. James Davis of Denver is the No. 74 ranked singles player in the ITA and will also compete in the regional tournament.

Day one matches start on Tuesday, September 21, can be found on the ITA website, and will begin with doubles play at 9 a.m. MT. The tournament will then proceed with singles matches from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. MT.