Pothier, Sheehy to Malibu for ITA Oracle Masters

Tournament Central | Live Scoring | Live Video (Malibu Racquet Club only) | Draw Sheets
 

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ABILENE – Senior Lucile Pothier and junior Josh Sheehy represent Abilene Christian tennis and the Southland Conference this weekend at the third-annual Oracle ITA Masters hosted by Pepperdine University and the Malibu Racquet Club.
 
Sheehy – a No. 1 singles competitor for ACU the past two seasons and previous Southland Freshman of the Year – is making his ITA Masters debut, while Pothier – a winner of 29 matches and First Team All-Southland honoree – returns to SoCal for the second-straight season.
 
The Wildcats will be entered into their respective men's and women's singles draws in addition to playing mixed doubles.
 
Pothier won three matches in Malibu last September. She and Lamar's Michael Feucht upset the seventh-seeded team of Pepperdine's Ashley Lahey and Kentucky's William Bushamuka, 6-2, and in singles she recorded consecutive consolation bracket victories over Liza Fieldsend (College of Charleston) 6-4, 6-2, and Marianna Petrei (Idaho) 6-2, 2-6, 6-3.
 
The Oracle ITA Masters will again feature 32-player singles competitors per gender. Invitations were sent out to one man and one woman from each Division I Conference to participate, with criteria similar to the NCAA Tournament being used. Singles champions from this event will earn automatic entry into the 2017 Oracle ITA National Fall Championships, which take place November 1-5, in Palm Desert, Calif.
 
Defending Oracle ITA Masters women's singles champion Ena Shibahara of UCLA highlights the women's singles field. Shibahara enters this weekend as the nation's No. 1-ranked player in the Oracle ITA Division I Women's Preseason National Rankings.
 
Petros Chrysochos of Wake Forest – the 2016 Saint Francis Health System ITA Men's All-American singles champion – is the highest-ranked player in the men's singles field, checking in at No. 3.
 
Pothier and Sheehy both began fall competition last weekend at the Midland Racquet Club Invitational. Sheehy and his younger brother, Jonathan, reached the doubles finals where they lost, 8-5, to the third-seeded duo of Colin Markes and Adrian Ortiz (Texas), but prior to that defeat they knocked off additional tandems from Texas, Rice and Utah State.
 
Pothier lost her lone doubles match but reached the main draw quarterfinals in singles. She started her run with wins vs. Rishona Lewis (Texas State), 6-3, 6-1 and Sasha Belaya (Illinois), 6-0, 6-0, but couldn't get past No. 1 seed Maria Shishkina (Tyler JC), 0-6, 7-5, 10-6.
 
Sheehy went 1-1 in Midland singles, following a 6-3, 6-4 win over Miroslav Herzan (Wichita State) with a close 6-7, 7-6, 10-6 defeat vs. Mathews Leite (Texas Tech) in the Round of 16.
 
Matches begin Thursday at 8 a.m. PT / 10 a.m. CT with the first round of mixed doubles followed by women's and men's singles. The day concludes with a second round of doubles. A majority of the matches will take place at Pepperdine, while six others are slated to be played at the Malibu Racquet Club, which is offering live video.
 
A live scoring site has been developed for both locales.