July 18, 2008

Chapel Hill, N.C. - The 2008 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Summer Circuit presented by the USTA will be coming to the University of North Carolina's Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center July 19-22. Singles matches will begin at 8:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday morning. A complete schedule can be found at: http://www.tennisinformation.com/tourny/5/1/8/1/4/9/2/default.asp

The ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit is made up of seven regional circuits (East, Southeast, Midwest, Central, Mountain Southwest and West) for collegiate players (events are also open to junior players and USTA members from the general public). Each region consists of four consecutive tournaments played during the month of July. The ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit began in 1993 and over 22,000 players have competed in circuit events since '93. Indiana University women's coach Lin Loring came up with the concept to begin the circuit and serves as its overall director.

Last year Tar Heel senior Will Plyler captured UNC's summer circuit singles title with a 6-2, 4-6, 1-0(3) victory over Clemson's Kevin Fleck. Each tournament on the circuit includes men's and women's singles and doubles.

The ITA National Summer Championships presented by the USTA are the pinnacle of the ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit. This year's tournament takes place Aug. 11-15 at Indiana University. Champions from this tournament gain wild cards into the D'Novo/ITA Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships in October, the first national tournaments of the 2008-09 collegiate tennis season.

The latest news on this year's ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit can be found on the official ITA website is www.itatennis.com.