FARMERS BRANCH, Texas — LSU’s eighth-ranked Ajay Ramaswami is set to compete in the 2001 Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships on Thursday here in Farmers Branch, Texas. The four-day tournament is the third leg of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Grand Slam and is being hosted by Southern Methodist University at the Brookhaven Country Club near Dallas.
Ramaswami, an at-large selection for the tournament, will be among the nation’s top college tennis players competing this weekend. He is scheduled to face second-ranked Marko Cerenko of Duke in the first round of play on Thursday at 8:30 a.m.
The Tiger senior from Mumbai, India, has accumulated an overall record of 15-4 this season. Ramaswami won the singles consolation-bracket title at the ITA Clay Court Championships. The event held in Baltimore, Md., was the second leg of the ITA Grand Slam. Ramaswami fell in the opening round of the tournament to 29th-ranked Andy Leber of Texas-Arlington, but then overcame five-straight ranked opponents in the losers bracket to win the consolation championship.
The Rolex National Intercollegiate Championship features a 32-player singles field and a 16-team doubles field for both the top men and women’s tennis players in the nation. It also includes qualifiers from ITA Regional Championships held across the country during the fall, the Rolex National Small College champions, the winners of the first two legs of the 2000-01 ITA Grand Slam, as well as at-large and wild card selections made by the ITA National Tournament Committee.
LSU’s eighth-ranked Ramaswami will face Duke’s second-ranked Cerenko in the opening round of competition of the Rolex Indoor Championships Thursday morning at 8:30 p.m. here at the Brookhaven Country Club in Farmer’s Branch, Texas. Complete tournament information is available on ITA’s official website, www.ITAtennis.com.