Two of Columbia’s standout men’s tennis players will represent the Lions at the D’Novo All-American Championship this weekend in Tulsa, Okla. Junior Jon Wong will play in the qualifying singles, with a chance to advance to the main draw, and senior Bogdan Borta will team up with Wong to compete in the qualifying doubles draw as well.
Both players will enter the tournament with incredible momentum behind them, as both won titles at the Princeton Invitational this past weekend. Wong captured the “A” singles bracket at the tournament without dropping a set, and was the first Columbia player to do so since Oscar Chow CC ’03, did so in 2002. In addition, the final was an all-Columbia matchup as Wong was opposed by junior transfer Mihai Nichifor. Nichifor notched the biggest upset of the tournament in the first round, when he upset number one seed Hicham Laalej from Penn. Wong won in straight sets, and the victory was his first of the season. He soon followed it up with a win in doubles.
Wong teamed with Borta to win the doubles bracket of the “A” doubles flight as well, defeating the Princeton duo of Ryan Kim and Ilya Trubov in the finals. The win should give the Columbia pair plenty of confidence heading into the All-American Championships, where two players will see some familiar faces.
Peter Capkovic from Princeton and Chris Clayton from Harvard are the Ivy League’s lone representatives in the main draw for singles, but the Ivy League makes its presence felt in other draws. Along with Jon Wong in the qualifying draw, Laalej as well as Princeton athletes Alex Krueger-Wyman and George Carpeni will try to make the main draw. In the doubles main draw, Krueger-Wyman and Carpeni will be the league’s only competitors.
The singles qualifying draw will have 128 players, competing for 16 spots in the main draw, while the doubles qualifying bracket will have 64 teams vying for eight spots in the main doubles draw.
The draw features top singles and doubles players from across the country, including the top-ranked men’s college tennis player Oleksandr Nedovyesov of Oklahoma State. Last year’s champion and year-end number-one player Somdev Devvarman of Virginia has graduated and is having a successful pro career, so the tournament will crown a new singles champion this year. A past competitor in the event, Harvard standout James Blake went on to be ranked as high as number four in the world.
The qualifying draw for singles is slated to begin on Oct. 6, and the doubles qualifying bracket is scheduled to begin on Oct. 7.
