Nyman and Lozano to Play in National Indoor Championships

PROVO -- BYU's Erik Nyman and Carlos Lozano travel to Dallas this week as only one of 16 doubles teams that will be participating in the 2002 Omni Hotels National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships.

Lozano and Nyman are currently ranked 13th in the nation and go into the tournament with a 10-1 preseason doubles record. Their only loss was to the No. 2 nationally ranked team of Scott Lipsky and David Martin of Stanford in the ITA All-American Championships.

BYU head coach Jim Osborne has been very happy with Lozano and Nyman this fall and said he expects big things from them in the upcoming tournament.

"I think Nyman and Lozano are capable of winning the whole thing," Osborne said. "Tournaments like this one always depend on who's hot, and right now both Erik and Carlos are playing really good doubles."

The opening rounds of the tournament will begin Thursday morning. Southern Methodist University and the Brookhaven County Club are hosting nation's premier collegiate indoor tennis championships for the tenth time in 2002.

The Omni Hotels National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships are the second of three national championship events during the 2002-03 collegiate tennis season. The Icy Hot/ITA Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships were held last month, and the third event is the season-ending NCAA Championships in May.

The Omni Hotels National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships feature a 32-player singles field and 16-team doubles field for men and women, including: qualifiers from Omni Hotels Regional Championships held across the country during October, the Omni Hotels National Small College champions, the winners of the Icy Hot/ITA Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships and at-large and wild card selections made by the ITA National Tournament Committee. Overall, more than 10,000 players from nearly 600 schools participate annually in the Omni Hotels Regional and National Intercollegiate Championships.