College tennis event to be played at Balboa today

The 10th annual ITA College tennis tournament at the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club begins today with virtually every major college or university in the nation represented.

The first event on the College Summer Circuit will have full 64-player draws in women’s and men’s singles with 32 draws in doubles.

Stanford, UCLA, USC, Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and Arizona State lead the Western states. The state universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Colorado, Hawaii, Tennessee, Oregon, Virginia, Utah, Nebrask, and Washington join Notre Dame, Northwestern, Bucknell, Harvard, BYU, Brown, Purdue, Drexel, Georgetown, TCU and Princeton, among others with players in the draw.

Top junior players trying their hand against the college players include Chris Damion and Hailey Hogan from Corona del Mar High, Mater Dei’s Omeed Ghassemi, who lives in Corona del Mar, and Sage Hill’s Julia Blakeley, Jaclyn Smrecek and Kevin Wang.

Jonathan Kroopf, from Corona del Mar, who plays for Orange Coast College, leads a strong group of community college players in the tournament.

College players earn points in four consecutive tournaments to try to qualify for the 16-player qualifying tournament, where the winners in each division qualify for a U.S. Open berth in New York in August.

Following the Newport Beach tournament are three weekend tournaments at Ventura Community College (July 12-14), at Riviera Tennis Club in Pacific Palisades (July 19-21) and at Cal Poly Pomona (July 26-28).

The men’s singles first round begins today at 11 a.m., with women’s singles beginning at 3 p.m. Play continues Sunday at 9 a.m. with play all day. Semifinals and finals are scheduled for Monday from noon to 4 p.m. Doubles play begins at 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Admission is free but parking may be difficult because of the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club’s proximity to the Newport Beach Breaker stadium in the parking lot of the Newport Beach Country Club.

The Breakers have their home opener today at 7 p.m.

For more information, draws, and times, go to www.itatennis.com/Events/Summer

Circuit.

— From staff reports