Nov. 9, 2006

The Eastern Washington University men's tennis team will compete in the Duck Classic this weekend in Eugene, Ore. Matches will be contested at the Student Tennis Center and the Eugene Swim and Tennis Club. Other teams participating include Nevada, Oregon, Portland and Sacramento State.

In the "green" draw, Kyle Schraeder will play Filip Zivkovic of Portland, while Patrick Millican takes on Geoff Embry of Oregon. Pannhara Mam is slated to face New Mexico's Miles Bugby.

The "yellow" draw sees Kyle Cruzat play Nevada's Arzhang Derakhshani and Keithan Gregg face Gabe Kanzelmeyer, also of Nevada. Brian Garfield was fortunate enough to receive a bye into the second round where he will also play a Wolf Pack player in Guerin Smith. Kevin Erickson plays Portland's Carlos Machado, while Jonathan Davis and Art Karas receive first round byes. Davis will play Nevada's Antone Bulich and Karas is slated to take on Sacramento State's Hague Van Dillen.

Doubles play sees the following match-ups involving EWU players: Gregg and Erickson will take on Sacramento State's duo of Van Dillen and Gabriel Loredo and Garfield and Karas face Nevada's Bulich and Orion Ashmore in first-round play, while Millican and Davis will play Nevada's Guillaume Tonelli and Alex Daruty and Schraeder and Mam face either the duo of Sacramento State's Warwick Foy and Ramon Perez or Portland's tandem of Machado and Evan Schleining in the second round.

"Some of the best teams in the country will be playing, so certainly this will be a great benchmark for our program," head coach Patrick Dreves said. "The reason I chose to play this tournament is to show our kids where we need to be."

This competition will be the final one of the fall for the program and will run from Friday to Sunday. The spring schedule will start up in January and will culminate with the Big Sky Conference Championship, which will take place from April 26-28 in Sacramento, Calif.

"This fall we have had good tournaments," Dreves said. "On the men's side at the Red Lion Invitational (hosted by EWU), we had two players in the quarterfinals and Pannhara Mam winning the tournament."