Men's Tennis Closes Fall Season at ITA Conference Masters, Navy Invitational

Setting the Scene, Part 1
What: ITA Collegiate Masters Championships
Dates: Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 7-10
Where: Rome Tennis Center, Rome, Ga.
Field: Representatives from all 32 Division I conferences
Streaming: Cracked Racquets | PlaySight
Draws: ITA
Live Results: iOnCourt

Setting the Scene, Part 2
What: Navy Invitational
Dates: Friday-Sunday, Nov. 8-10
Where: U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
Field: Navy, Binghamton, Bucknell, James Madison, Long Island, Richmond, Saint Joseph's
Draws/Results: ITA

LEWISBURG, Pa. – The Bucknell men's tennis team wraps up its 2024 fall season this week against good competition at two different tournaments. Amar Tahirovic and Brendan McDonald will represent the Bison and the Patriot League at the ITA Collegiate Masters Championships in Rome, Ga., and the full squad will be in Annapolis over the weekend for the Navy Invitational.

The ITA event gets underway on Thursday and features brackets of 32 in both singles and doubles, with each Division I conference represented. Tahirovic in singles and the Tahirovic/McDonald tandem in doubles both advanced through a Patriot League-wide qualifier at West Point two weeks ago, and now they will be vying for automatic bids to the NCAA Championships at this high-level event in Georgia. All four singles semifinalists and the top three doubles teams will qualify for the NCAAs.

Tahirovic's first-round singles match will be against Big South Conference representative Eduardo Dias of Gardner-Webb. Dias, a senior from Brazil, was a First Team All-Big South honoree in both singles and doubles last season, and he was the league's Player of the Year in 2022.

Tahirovic is 9-1 in singles this fall, with the only loss a three-setter to Penn State's No. 1 Loren Byers at the ITA Regionals in Philadelphia. The winner of his match will face either UNC Wilmington's Joseph Wayand or Siena's Oscar Martinez later in the day on Thursday.

Bucknell's doubles entry will take on the Big Sky Conference's representatives Tristan Sarap and William Zulch from Weber State. The winner will draw the No. 1 seeded team of Petar Jovanovic and Benito Sanchez Martinez from Mississippi State, who received a first-round bye. Both earned All-America honors a year ago after reaching the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championships.

Meanwhile, the Navy Invitational gets going at noon on Friday. The tournament consists of round-robin play within four-player singles draws and four-team doubles draws.

Men's Tennis Closes Fall Season at ITA Conference Masters, Navy Invitational

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Players Mentioned

Brendan McDonald

Amar Tahirovic