North Carolina’s men’s tennis team is headed to Tulsa this weekend for the ITA Men’s All-American Championships, a key stop on the road to the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships in Orlando in November.
The tournament opens Saturday at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center and runs through September 27.
UNC will send six players into singles qualifying: Niels Ratiu, Chris Xu, Ian Mayew, Will Mayew, Sebastian Sec and Kase Schinnerer. In doubles, Schinnerer and Ian Mayew will compete in qualifying, while Ratiu and Xu are set for the doubles main draw.
The All-American Championships feature large fields across the board in 2026, with singles draws of pre-qualifying (160), qualifying (64) and main draw (64), plus doubles draws of pre-qualifying (32), qualifying (32) and main draw (32).
The event matters because it can send players directly into the NCAA championships. Ten singles players will advance to the NCAA Singles Championship - eight main draw quarterfinalists and two feed-in consolation finalists - while five doubles teams will move on to the NCAA Doubles Championship through the All-American Championships, including four main draw semifinalists and the consolation champion.
Tulsa is once again the host, marking the 21st straight season the University of Tulsa has staged the ITA Men’s All-American Championships. The event itself has been a fixture of the fall college tennis calendar for more than 40 years, and it became a qualifying event for the NCAA Individual Championships in 2024 as part of a two-year pilot program that went into permanent effect before the 2026-27 season.
UNC’s Saturday schedule starts early and spreads across the day. In singles pre-qualifying, Ratiu faces Luca Bluett of Santa Clara at 9 a.m.; Ian Mayew meets Ty Host of Florida at 9 a.m.; Schinnerer takes on Peter Nad of Notre Dame at 9 a.m.; Will Mayew plays Matei Cristian Onofrei of Louisville at 10:30 a.m.; Xu goes against Yazid Lahjomri of UNLV at 11 a.m.; and Sec draws Cyrus Mahjoob of Northwestern at 12:30 p.m.
In doubles, Ian Mayew and Schinnerer are scheduled to play Jan Klimas and Nikola Djosic of Arizona State in a round-of-32 match.
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