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BLACKSBURG, Va. – Virginia Tech will send 11 men’s tennis players to participate in the USTA/ITA Atlantic Regional tournament this week. The event, hosted by the University of Virginia, features some of the top players in the nation and will be held, Oct. 20-24, at the Snyder Tennis Center.

The tournament features a 128-player singles draw and the 64-team doubles draw. The Atlantic Region is comprised of schools from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Two rounds of doubles will be played on Wednesday and one round of singles with the format reversed on Thursday.

The Atlantic Regional is one of 12 regional events nationally as players battle for a spot at the ITA National Indoor Championships, The singles and doubles champions from the NCAA Division I USTA/ITA Regional Championships will advance to the 2010 USTA/ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, taking place November 4-7, at the new indoor facilities at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, located in Flushing, N.Y. Columbia University will serve as the tournament host.

Eight Hokies will see singles action on Wednesday with Jonathan Pine (Jr., Vienna, Va.) first on the court at 9 a.m. for a match against Mandeep Yadev (Liberty). Also at 9 a.m., Trpimir Kujundzic (So., Zagreb, Croatia) plays Reese Milner (Virginia) while Adam Lawton (Fr., Las Vegas, Nev.) battles Filip Rams (Temple) in a 10 a.m. contest. Zach Pine (Jr., Vienna, Va.) will face Daniel Mihalov (William & Mary) in a 10:30 a.m. match and Will Beck (Sr., Potomac, Md.) will play Taylor Cohen (Penn State) at noon. The final three singles matches involving Hokies on Wednesday includes Leonardo Lapentti (Guayaquil, Ecuador) battling Christian Romanzini (Norfolk State) at 12:30 p.m., Pedro Graber, a 17-32 seed, taking on Jorge Osuna (George Mason) at 1:30 p.m. and Lucas Oliveira (So.., Sao Paulo, Brazil) versus Tim Walsh (Georgetown) also at 1:30 p.m.

Three other Hokies are seeded in the tournament and received first round byes. Luka Somen (Jr., Karlovac, Croatia), the third seed, will play his first singles match on Thursday against the winner of Wednesday’s Dmitry Chekhlaty (Morgan State)/Brian Fang (Virginia) match. Corrado Degl Incerti Tocci (Jr., Reggio Emilia, Italy), seeded No. 7, will face the winner of Krzysztof Muzalewski (Old Dominion)/Mwall Phiri (UMBC) in Thursday’s second round and Patrick Daciek (Jr., Severna Park, Md.), seeded 17-32, plays Thursday against the winner of the Oliveria (Virginia Tech)/Walsh (Georgetown) match.

In Wednesday doubles, Kujundzic/Oliveira have a 4 p.m. match against Austin/Romanzini (Norfolk State) and Beck/Z. Pine face Andersson/Mihalov (William & Mary) at 4:30 p.m. Somen/Tocci, seeded No. 7, received a first round bye and will play the winner of the Marlin/Sentence (James Madison) vs. Lemmi/Stayt (Liberty) match in Wednesday’s second round while Daciek/Graber, seeded 9-12, also received a bye and will face the Lafferty/List (Lehigh) vs. Bullard/Gutsche (Navy) match in another Wednesday second round contest.

The event continues through Sunday with results available at www.virginiasports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17800&ATCLID=205015144

For updates on Virginia Tech men's tennis, follow the Hokies on Twitter (@VT_MTennis).