Four Baylor men’s tennis players will compete in the first individual tournament of the fall season this weekend. Jimmy Bendeck, Constantin Frantzen, Bjoern Peterson and Max Tchoutakian, will take part in the Napa Valley Tennis Classic at Meadowood, in Napa, Calif., Friday through Sunday.
The tournament field consists of 24 college players and eight USTA Juniors. Collegiate players hail from Baylor, Cal, North Carolina, USC, Texas and Tulsa.
Tchoutakian, ranked No. 54 in the preseason ITA singles listings, is BU’s most experienced player. He is coming off a junior campaign in which he went 19-10 overall in singles action.
Bendeck, the lone Bear to play in last season’s event, went 1-1 in the Napa Valley Tennis Classic in 2015. The sophomore went on to post a 24-13 overall singles record in his first year in Waco.
Freshmen Frantzen and Peterson will be making their Baylor debuts at the Napa Valley Tennis Classic. Both players arrived at Baylor after successful prep careers in Germany where they advanced past the first round of the German Junior National Championships in 2015.
In the singles portion of the event, players will be divided up into eight groups of four players (3 college players and 1 junior), who will play a round robin – one match per day – starting on Friday morning. Each of the eight group winners will be entered in a tiebreaker shootout draw on Sunday. The shootout winner will receive a main draw Challenger wild card. Meanwhile in doubles, players will play two matches – one on Friday and one on Saturday.
All matches will be chaired and played using ITA rules (ITA Code of Conduct, No Let, Etc). Matches played between college players will count for Campbell/ITA Rankings and NCAA selection. Matches played between college players and juniors will not count for Campbell/ITA rankings or NCAA selection.
