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Las Vegas • BYU's nationally ranked tennis team will begin competition at the ITA Mountain Region Championships Wednesday at the Darling Tennis Center in Las Vegas, in a tournament scheduled to end Sunday.
"This is an opportunity for our team to compete against great players from around our region and to really show how solid we are from top to bottom," BYU head coach Brad Pearce said.
No. 91 senior Georgy Batrakov is the No. 1 seed in the singles bracket, which features 128 athletes. Also seeded are Spencer Smith (6), Patrick Kawka (10) and freshman Keaton Cullimore(25).
Top-seeded Batrakov is coming off an impressive run at the ITA All-American Championships, reaching the Round of 16 before recording his first loss this fall. Batrakov was the first Cougar since 2002 to accomplish the feat. Batrakov reached the singles semifinals during the 2010 ITA Mountain Region Championships.
Utah State will also be participating in the meet. Freshman Marcus Fritz and sophomore Fredrik Peterson made it to the semifinal round of doubles competition before falling to a duo from Utah. Freshman Curran Wearmouth and senior Nate Ballam, won the doubles consolation bracket in a tournament last week at the University of Utah.
The singles champion and doubles champion will represent the entire Mountain Region in the ITA National Championships in New York at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, cite of the U.S. Open.