July 22, 2010
ATLANTA--Texas A&M tennis player Colin Hoover (Victoria, TX) defeated Eric Quigley, 6-3, 6-3, in the opening round of the US Open National Playoffs at the Atlanta Athletic Club on Thursday.
Hoover, who will be a junior next year for Aggie head coach Steve Denton, most recently won the ITA Summer Circuit Tournament hosted by McMurry and Abilene Christian in Abilene, Texas.
I was very excited and a little bit overwhelmed at the start of the match," Hoover said. "We were playing on Court 2, right behind the stadium court. Andy Roddick was playing at the same time so you could hear `Game Roddick'. That's the kind of stuff you dream about when you grow up wanting to play tennis."
Then facing Eric who played at #1 for Kentucky was very challenging," Hoover continued. "He is a very good player and I had, and still have, a lot of respect for him and his game. We both broke each other early in the first set and then things settled down and I was able to break him at 4-3 and finish off the first set."
In the second set, I had to fight back in the final game to get it to deuce and then he hit a backhand into the net on a long rally to finish off the match," Hoover explained. "I felt like I was prepared and had a good game plan. I didn't want to get too fancy, I just wanted to play solid."
Quigley ended the year ranked #10 in the collegiate ITA rankings and was an All-American for the University of Kentucky and a USTA Summer Collegiate Team member.
In the next round, Hoover will face the #3 seed Olivier Sajous on Friday. Sajous grew up in Haiti and his family was displaced by the recent earthquake. Sajous defeated Keith Whittingham in his opener, 6-3, 6-1. Sajous had played collegiately at the University of Texas.
The USTA announced this process which will allow the winner of the tournament to receive a wild card entry into the 2010 US Open Qualifying Tournament, Aug. 24-27, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, New York.