July 22, 2011

Sophomore Pete Carpenter recently won the singles title at the West Penn Amateur/National Collegiate Clay Court Championships held July 4-9 in Mt. Lebanon. In addition, he and incoming freshman Alex Aleman captured the doubles crown as well.

Carpenter went 5-0 in winning the title, losing just one set, which conincidently was to teammate Aleman. In the round of 32, he defeated Mike Russell, 6-1, 6-1 before downing Patrick Cole, 6-1, 6-1 in the round of 16. He met Aleman in the quarterfinals and captured a 6-0, 3-6, 10-7 victory, then took down Timothy Rosensteel in the semifinals, 6-2, 6-4 and won the title by default over Marko Dragic.

Carpenter and Aleman combined to go 4-0 in doubles action.

The ITA Summer Circuit is made up of seven regional circuits (East, Southeast, Midwest, Central, Mountain, Southwest and West) for collegiate players. Each region consists of four consecutive tournaments played during the month of July. The ITA Summer Circuit began in 1993 and over 22,000 players have competed in circuit events since its inception.

The National Collegiate Clay Court Championship actually began 122 years ago in 1889. Past tournament champions include Bill Tilden, Peter Fleming and Vitas Gerulaitis.