The players on the Auburn Tennis Club team were not recruited via limousine and they don't have scholarships to play, but they are going to the national championships this year. This will be the second year in a row the Tiger's club tennis team has earned a spot to compete on nationals. "Last year was really fun," said senior Cantrell Ellis. "Hopefully we'll do a lot better this year." The team secured its bid by winning the USTA Campus Championship-Southern Section at the Yarbrough Tennis Center in Auburn.
In the section championship, the club defeated the reigning 2009 National Champions, the Duke University Tennis Club team as well as the University of Alabama Club team. The team also won the Southern section last year, making it to nationals, where it placed 39th, a position the team is looking to improve. "We're really pumped about it," said Stephen Pola, club president. "We learned a lot last year." Auburn is one of only 64 teams competing for the national title.
This year, the Tigers face a number of tough opponents, including 2008 National Champions, the University of Texas at Austin Club team and Texas A&M University at College Station, who won the national title four years in a row from 2004 - 2007. Two other previous national champions will also be competing in the tournament: the University of Florida club team and the University of North Carolina club team. Auburn has pulled out all the stops in preparation for the national tournament, bringing in ex-varsity tennis player Alex Haney to help with coaching and conditioning. "We're practicing about six days a week," Pola said. "We've even started doing some conditioning."
The club is optimistic about the upcoming national championship, bringing more reserve players and leaning on the experience it gained last year. "We're going to try to do better than last year," said sophomore Eleanor McMillian. The Tigers will be playing in the 2010 U.S. Tennis Association's National Campus Championship April 15-17 at the Surprise Tennis and Racquet Complex in Surprise, Ariz. The team is co-ed and both teams will be competing at the national championship.
Eleven players are making the trip to Arizona for the championship: seniors Pola, Tip Bradford and Ellis, junior Jimmy Epps, sophomores Caroline Coble, Zack Fritz and Eleanor, and freshmen Christin Hoffman, Julian Paez, Danny Oberholtzer and Rob Oberman. The tournament is hosted by the USTA, the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, World Team Tennis and the Intercollegiate Tennis Association and is part of the USTA's Tennis On Campus program The program provides co-ed college club teams with venues for regional and national competition and offers services to more than 30,000 students on more than 500 college campuses.
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