Florida Gators
ITA All-American
Men's Tennis Freshmen End Run At ITA All-American
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 | Men's Tennis
After making it to the final round of the qualifying singles draw at the ITA All-American Championships, the impressive run by two freshmen members of the UF men's tennis team came to a close Wednesday morning in Tulsa, Okla.
Joey Burkhardt (St. Augustine) was defeated by Ole Miss' Kalle Norberg, 6-3, 6-2, while Carlos Cueto (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain) suffered a 7-5, 6-4, setback to Illinois' 98th-ranked Roy Kalmanovich. Burkhardt, who is now 7-2 on the year, posted four wins at the event to get to within one of reaching the main draw.
"I'm very excited so far because we've shown a lot of depth and talent throughout the week," said UF head coach Andy Jackson. "I think particularly Joey going from prequalifying to the last round of qualifying and having defeated three players in the top 100 in the rankings already this year is off to a good start to his career."
Florida's Jeff Dadamo and Tyler Hochwalt (No.22) will represent the Gators in the main draw of doubles, which begins tomorrow.
The D'Novo All-American Tennis Championships entailed five days of qualifying events beginning with a 256-player pre-qualifying singles tournament, which took place on Oct. 3-5. The pre-qualifying fed into 128-player and 64-doubles team qualifying tournaments on Oct. 6-8, which then fed into the 64-player, 32-doubles team main draws on Oct. 9-12.
The ITA All-America Championships are the first of three national championship events during the 2008-09 collegiate tennis season. The other two are the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships in November and the season-ending NCAA Championships in May.
2008 D'Novo/ITA Men's All-American Championships Qualifying Event
Qualifying Singles Draw Third Round
(98) Roy Kalmanovich (Illinois) def. Carlos Cueto (UF), 7-5, 6-4
Kalle Norberg (Ole Miss) def. Joey Burkhardt (UF), 6-3, 6-2
