Preview: ITA All-American Championships

FORT WORTH – TCU has its first crack at an ITA fall championship.

Four Horned Frogs are headed north for the ITA Men's All-American Championships, held from Sept. 21-29 on the courts of the Michael D. Case Tennis Center in Tulsa, Okla.

Lui Maxted and Pedro Vives are competing in the main singles and doubles draws. Both players were automatic qualifiers in singles on the strength of their preseason ITA rankings. Maxted and Vives were awarded one of three doubles wild cards.

Filip Apltauer and Duncan Chan were qualifying singles selections. They begin play at 8 a.m. on Saturday in the prequalifying round of 128.

Apltauer, a sophomore transfer from Tennessee, is making his TCU debut. He'll face Georgia Tech's Richard Biagiotti. Chan takes the court opposite Logan Zapp of North Carolina.

Apltauer and Chan are vying for two of 16 qualifying spots in the 64-man main draw.

Maxted and Vives are one of 32 main draw doubles pairs.

About the ITA All-American Championships
From the ITA All-American Championships, 10 singles players (eight quarterfinalists, two consolation finalists) and all four doubles semifinalists qualify for the NCAA Individual Championships. The singles and doubles champions also earn one of 32 spots in November's ITA Conference Masters Championships, formerly known as the ITA National Fall Championships.

The NCAA Individual Championships are being held during the fall season for the first time ever and run from Nov. 19-24 in Waco. The ITA All-American Championships are the first of four fall championship events used to set the singles and doubles brackets.

Paul Robinson and current TCU head coach David Roditi won the ITA All-American Men's Doubles Championship in 1994.

Tournament Schedule – Prequalifying
Saturday, Sept. 21 – Singles RD128
Sunday, Sept. 22 – Singles RD64

Tournament Schedule – Qualifying
Monday, Sept. 23 – Singles RD64
Tuesday, Sept. 24 – Singles RD32

Tournament Schedule – Main Draw
Wednesday, Sept. 25 – Singles RD64, doubles RD32
Thursday, Sept. 26 – Singles RD32, doubles RD16
Friday, Sept. 27 – Singles RD16, singles quarterfinals, doubles quarterfinals
Saturday, Sept. 28 – Singles and doubles semifinals
Sunday, Sept. 29 – Singles and doubles finals

Scoring Format
All singles and doubles matches are scored as best-of-three tiebreak sets, with a 10-point tiebreaker in effect for doubles affairs tied at one set apiece.

Competing for TCU

Pedro Vives

Career fall singles record: 20-12
Career fall doubles record: 22-9
Vives received the preseason ITA No. 37 singles ranking in August.
He is making his second straight main draw appearance at the ITA All-American Championships. Vives picked up two qualifying singles victories and won his opening round main draw doubles match in 2023.
Vives has twice reached the ITA Conference Masters Championship, previously known as the ITA National Fall Championships. Vives was a doubles semifinalist and singles quarterfinalist in 2023. As a freshman, he and Maxted reached the doubles semifinals at Fall Nationals.
Vives and Maxted were the ITA Texas Regional doubles champions in 2023. Vives also finished as a singles finalist.
Vives accumulated a 17-7 combined overall record (9-4 singles, 9-3 doubles) during the 2023 fall season. He achieved a career-high ITA singles ranking of No. 14 following Fall Nationals.
The Spaniard is TCU's active career leader in combined overall victories with 129. Of his wins, 75 are in doubles.
One of three seniors on TCU's roster, Vives became the 31^st All-American in program history in May after earning seeded positioning in doubles at the 2024 NCAA Individual Championships.

Lui Maxted

Career fall singles record: 16-8
Career fall doubles record: 29-14
Maxted is less than a week removed from finishing as the singles runner-up at the Battle in the Bay Classic. He earned the highest-ranked singles victories of his career during his stay in San Francisco, defeating No. 15 Jay Friend (Arizona) and No. 44 Theo Dean (Cal) in the semifinals and quarterfinals, respectively.
Maxted sports a 24-6 singles record in 2024.
The England native won a team-leading four matches at the 2023 ITA All-American Championships. He and Chan were awarded a wild card onto the main doubles draw after pocketing two qualifying victories.
Partnering with Maxted in doubles has been a proven guarantee of a ticket to San Diego for the ITA Conference Masters Championships. He has advanced to Fall Nationals in each of his three seasons, all with different partners. He and Sander Jong reached the finals in 2022. Last year, Maxted and Chan advanced to the quarterfinals. Their run in San Diego was ignited by an upset of top overall seed Karlis Ozolins and Hunter Heck of Illinois.
He is one of four Horned Frogs to reach the doubles final in the 45-year history of Fall Nationals.
Maxted has finished as a finalist in doubles at the ITA Texas Regional for two straight years. He and Chan were the runner-up to Vives in last season's ITA Texas Regional. Maxted and Jong took second in the 2022 edition of the annual event.
Maxted collected a team-best 27 doubles victories in 2023-24.
He achieved a career-high ITA singles ranking of No. 39 in the 2024 preseason rankings.

Duncan Chan

Career fall singles record: 5-4
Career fall doubles record: 14-7
Chan enjoyed a breakthrough weekend at the Battle in the Bay Classic to begin his sophomore season. He was a doubles finalist alongside Danial Rakhmatullayev of Michigan State. Chan collected an opening round singles victory and pushed preseason ITA No. 1 Ozan Baris to a set three tiebreaker in the round of 16.
Chan won six of his last seven contested doubles matches with Maxted last fall on their way to the ITA Conference Masters Championships.
He achieved a career-high ITA doubles ranking of No. 15 last year following Fall Nationals.
Chan's 11 doubles wins in 2023 were the most of any Horned Frog.
Partnering with Maxted, Chan produced a 3-3 doubles record at the 2023 ITA All-American Championships.
Chan picked up two singles victories apiece last fall at the inaugural US College Cup Invitational and in the qualifying draw of the ITA Texas Regional.
He produced a team-best 4-2 combined overall record in the US College Cup, which utilizes hidden dual play and is held in Torreon, Mexico.

Filip Apltauer

Career fall singles record: 6-2
Career fall doubles record: 1-3
Apltauer transferred to TCU from Tennessee in August. The sophomore helped the Volunteers reach the quarterfinals of the ITA Indoor National Championships and NCAA D1 Men's Tennis Championship as a freshman.
From Prague, Czech Republic, Apltauer concluded the 2023-24 season with a 31-25 combined overall record, highlighted by a 16-10 mark in singles.
He competed to a 4-1 singles record at the ITA Ohio Valley Regional last fall in what was his second collegiate event.
Apltauer also went 2-1 in singles in his college debut at Hagedorn Hidden Dual.

Up Next
Overlapping with the conclusion of ITA All-American Championships is the second US College Cup Invitational on Sept. 27-29 in Torreon, Mexico. The event was incepted by Roditi in the spirit of increasing youth participation in the sport and international interest in the college game. The tournament features hidden dual play between Arizona State, Abilene Christian, Rice and TCU. Chan, along with Julian Alonso, Kaj Quirijns and Luke Swan, made the trip south of the border for the Horned Frogs last season.

Schedule