Oct. 21, 2004

Men's tennis will send Michal Kokta, Barry McLaren, Lars Poerschke and Matija Zgaga to the ITA Central Regional at the University of Texas-Austin this weekend, Oct. 22-25.

The weekend tournament marks the fourth-fall tournament for the Bears in 2004, each of which a Baylor player is the reigning champion. In 2003, Benjamin Becker won the ITA Central Regional in Fort Worth.

Zgaga returns to action after winning the singles title at the Baylor Intercollegiate. He defeated No. 80 Joseph Jung of Alabama 6-2, 6-1 for his second career tournament championship. Zgaga is 6-0 this year, including two victories against ranked opponents, No. 58 Fererico Ueltschi 6-3, 6-2 the other.

Kokta and Poerschke will participate in their third fall tournament this weekend. Both played in the Baylor Intercollegiate and Midland Tournament. Kokta holds a 1-4 record this season after going 1-2 last weekend at the Midland Tournament. Poerschke improved his fall record after going 3-1 last weekend.

McLaren enters his fourth tournament of the fall. Besides the Baylor Intercollegiate and the Midland Tournament, he participated in the ITA All-American Pre-Qualifier and Qualifier Oct. 1-3. McLaren is 6-4 in his first season back from injury.

This weekend's tournament is one of seven ITA qualifiers being played at universities across the country. The singles finalists and doubles championship duo will advance to the ITA Finals at the University of Michigan Oct. 29-31.

Three Big 12 Conference foes will participate in the regional. Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech will represent the conference against the 16 teams from Texas and Louisiana.

The first rounds of action starts Friday and runs through the weekend. Results will be available at Texas' web site at the end of each day.