USTA Announces Details of 2015 USTA/ITA Championships

The USTA has announced that ESPN3 and WatchESPN will deliver the men’s and women’s singles semifinals and finals of the 2015 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships November 14-15 and will include mid-match, on-court interviews with players – debuted by ESPN during the 2015 US Open – as part of the event coverage. The tournament, which features many of the country’s top men’s and women’s college players, will be played November 12-15 at the USTA Billie Jean National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.

Defending National Indoors champ and Oyster Bay, N.Y., native Julia Elbaba (Virginia, Sr.), 2014 NCAA singles champion Danielle Collins (Virginia, Sr.) and second-ranked Brooke Austin (Florida, Soph.) will headline a women’s singles field that includes eight of the Top 10 players in the fall Oracle/ITA national singles rankings, while the men’s singles field includes fifth-ranked Quentin Monaghan (Notre Dame, Sr.), a Chatham, N.J., native, and Saint Francis ITA All-American champion Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (Virginia, Jr.). The full singles and doubles fields, subject to change, are available on the ITA’s website.

Coverage from ESPN3 and WatchESPN, available online at WatchESPN.com and on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, begins at 9 a.m. ET Sat., Nov. 14, with the men’s and women’s singles semifinals, played consecutively. The men’s and women’s singles finals, also played one after the other, will begin at 10 a.m. ET Sun., Nov. 15. Patrick McEnroe and USTA National Coach, Collegiate Tennis Stephen Amritraj will serve as on-air talent for the six matches, with McEnroe conducting on-court interviews with players during set breaks, an innovation that debuted with Pam Shriver’s interview of CoCo Vandeweghe in the first round of the 2015 US Open. Additionally, each player’s college coach will wear a microphone during the match.

Live scoring will be available throughout all four days of the event, on host Columbia University’s athletics website, GoColumbiaLions.com. USTA.com will again host a live chatfor all four days of the tournament. Ken Thomas of RadioTennis.com will also broadcast the duration of the event.

The USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships were inaugurated in 1978 for the men and 1984 for the women. Past champions and finalists include James Blake (Harvard), Bob and Mike Bryan (Stanford), Irina Falconi (Georgia Tech), Nicole Gibbs (Stanford), John Isner (Georgia), Steve Johnson (Southern California), Jamie Loeb (North Carolina), Todd Martin (Northwestern), Lisa Raymond (Florida) and MaliVai Washington (Michigan).

The event features a 32-player singles field and 20-team doubles field for men and women, including: men’s and women’s champions from each of the 12 Division I USTA/ITA Regional Championships, the men’s and women’s USTA/ITA National Small College Super Bowl champion, the quarterfinalists of the ITA Men’s All-American Championships, the semifinalists from the Riviera/ITA Women’s All-American Championships and the consolation winners from both, the Oracle/ITA Masters champions, as well as at-large and wild card selections made by the ITA and USTA. Additionally, Columbia University, which is serving as the host school for the fifth consecutive year, receives a wild card entry into each draw.

The USTA is the national governing body for the sport of tennis in the U.S. and the leader in promoting and developing the growth of tennis at every level -- from local communities to the highest level of the professional game. A not-for-profit organization with more than 715,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds in growing the game. It owns and operates the US Open, the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world, and launched the Emirates Airline US Open Series, linking seven summer tournaments to the US Open. In addition, it owns approximately 90 Pro Circuit events throughout the U.S. and selects the teams for the Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Olympic and Paralympic Games. The USTA’s philanthropic entity, the USTA Foundation, provides grants and scholarships and helps under-resourced youth and individuals with disabilities, and supports  wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans and their families. For more information on the USTA, log on to usta.com, “like” the official Facebook page, facebook.com/usta, or follow @usta on Twitter.