TULSA -- After three days of competition the four members of the BYU men's tennis team who qualified for the ITA All-American Championships have been eliminated from the tournament.
Jose Lechuga, Nima Roshan, Dominik Kaufhold and James Ludlow represented BYU at the championships, with Ludlow advancing the farthest in the tournament. Playing singles, Ludlow won his first match by beating Billy Mertz from Alabama 6-1, 6-4. He then advanced to play the No. 12 seed in the tournament, Matic Omerzel from Georgia. Ludlow had trouble with Omerzel early on, dropping the first set 4-6. Ludlow would not accept defeat, though, and charged through the rest of the match, winning the second set 7-6 and closing the door on his opponent by winning the final set 6-2. With the win Ludlow advanced to the final round of qualifying, however he couldn't hold and lost to No. 20 seed Matt Roberts of Arkansas 7-6, 6-2.
Ludlow looked to carry his success in the singles draw into the doubles draw with his partner Dominik Kaufhold. The duo opened doubles play by beating Virginia's Rylan Rizz and Eric Riley 8-6, but couldn't get over the hump in their second match, losing to Bram Berge and Juan Pablo Di Cesare from Ole Miss 9-7.
Nima Roshan also competed in both the singles and doubles portion of the tournament, but things didn't go his way. Battling the flu, Roshan paired off against No. 25 seed Benjamin Carlotti of North Carolina. Rosahn did all he could, but it just wasn't enough, as he lost the match 6-4, 6-2. Roshan later played doubles with his teammate Jose Lechuga, losing in a hard-fought tiebreaker 9-8 to Bryan Konieko and Devin Mulligans from Ohio St.
Although none of the Cougars advanced to the main draw, head coach Brad Pearce said this was still a good experience for his team.
"I think we're coming back with some pretty good confidence," he said.
The Cougars will use that confidence as they look ahead to the ITA Region VII Championships in Las Vegas, Nev., Oct. 20-24.