Rosa Draws Tough Opening Assignment
5/25/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
May 25, 2010
Rice's Bruno Rosa will face a stern test right out of the gate when he opens his pursuit of a third consecutive All America ranking on Wednesday in the NCAA Men's Singles Championship in Athens, Georgia.
The senior from Florianopolis, Brazil, currently ranked 27th in the ITA rankings, will face 14th ranked Sanam Singh of Virginia at 4 p.m. at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex at the University of Georgia. Virginia came into the NCAA Championships as the top seed in the team competition but was eliminated by USC in the semifinals on Monday.
A tough opening assignment is nothing new for Rosa, who faced #8 Robert Farah of USC in his opening match in 2009. Rosa upset Farah, 7-5, 7-6 and went on to advance to the round of 16 with a defeat of Clint Bowles of Florida State. This will mark the second consecutive year that Singh has drawn a Rice opponent in his opening NCAA singles match. He defeated Christoph Müller, 6-3, 6-1 in 2009 and went on to advance to the semifinals.
Rosa is looking to become the first Rice tennis player to earn All American ranking in three consecutive years since Mike Estep and Zan Guerry from 1969-71. He was named the 2010 Conference USA Player of the Year after leading the Owls to the conference team title, in addition to earning Outstanding Singles Player of the Championships and teaming with Isamu Tachibana to earn Outstanding Doubles honors as well.
