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USA Mens Tennis Team Receives Pan Am Games Draw
By Howard Thomas // July 22, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – The U.S. men’s tennis trio of Stephen Bass (Bronxville, N.Y.), Todd Paul (Stamford, Conn.) and Travis Helgeson (Overland Park, Kan.) learned their first round opponent’s for Monday’s opener after receiving the draw for the Pan American Games tournament.
“I think there is a bunch of guys here who are very very good in the (ATA ranking) 100’s to 300’s, and a bunch of other guys who don’t’ have any points who are still very, very good,” said Bass on the Pan Am field. “I think it’s just kind of a crapshoot on who you get and how good they are going to be, especially on clay. I think everyone adapts to this a little differently.”
Bass will open the tournament on the red clay courts of the Marapendi Club against Marvin Role of Bahamas at 1 p.m. Helgeson drew the early start against Michael Kristepher Elien of the Virgin Islands at 10 a.m. followed by Paul against Gustavo Ramirez of Paraguay at 1 p.m.
The top 16-seeded players in the 48-player tournament received opening round byes with Brazil’s Flavio Saretta (139 ranking) earning the top seed. Chile’s Adrian Garcia (141) is the tourney’s second seed followed by Thiago Alves (144) of Brazil at No. 3 and Marcos Daniel of Brazil at No. 4.
The winner of the Helgeson/Elien match will play No. 8 seed Carlos Andres Salamanca (291) of Columbia while the winner of Paul/Ramirez will take on No. 6 Ivan Miranda (231) of Peru and the winner of Bass/Rolle will face No. 9 seed Michael Quintero (309) of Columbia.
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