2016 Irving Tennis Classic Announces ATP Tournament Player Acceptance List

IRVING, Texas - Feb. 24, 2016 - PRLog -- The 2016 Irving Tennis Classic (ITC), an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Challenger Level Tour event announced the players acceptance list for its fifth annual tournament, held in Irving at the Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas, March 14-20.

The current list of players is packed full of talent with an exciting mix of young up-coming players and more experienced players including 4 Top 50 and 18 Top 100 ATP ranked players.  Returning from the 2015 ITC is Alexander (Sascha) Zverev, recently named Emirates’ 2015 ATP Star of Tomorrow for being the youngest (18 years of age) player to finish the season in the Top 100 (currently ranked 56).  Other notable players include Thomaz Bellucci, currently ranked 35 in the world with 4 ATP World Tour Titles and 8 Challenger Titles, Lukas Rosol, former Top 30 player (currently ranked 51) with 4 ATP World Tour Titles and 8 Challenger Titles including the 2014 ITC Title, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, former Top 30 player (currently 37) with 5 ATP World Tour Titles and 2 Challenger Titles, and one of the popular crowd favorites, Sergiy Stakhovsky (currently ranked 92) with his 4 ATP World Tour Titles and 4 Challenger Titles.  Also returning is Aljaz Bedene (currently ranked 54), who will compete to win his 12^th overall Challenger Title by defending his 2015 ITC Singles Championship Title.

“We are extremely pleased with the depth and diversity of the player acceptance list; these players provide a super strong and competitive field and promise to make for an exciting and entertaining 2016 ITC event,” said Zoltan Papp, Irving Tennis Classic Tournament Director. Zoltan continues with enthusiasm, “now that we have such great players coming here, we look forward to our great fans coming out to the ITC for some fantastic tennis fun.”

The City of Irving and BMW of Dallas will return as main sponsors of the ITC. Tickets are being sold through the tournament website at www.irvingtennisclassic.com and at the front gate of the ITC event.  The ticket sale proceeds go to the ITC beneficiary, Emily’s Place (http://www.emilysplacetx.org/).  Additional sponsorships and charitable donations may be submitted through the tournament website at www.irvingtennisclassic.com.

Player Acceptance List (As of February 25, 2016)

PLAYER COUNTRY RANKING

Bellucci, Thomaz BRA 35

Garcia-Lopez, Guillermo ESP 37

Muller, Gilles LUX 46

Ramos-Vinolas, Albert ESP 48

Rosol, Lukas CZE 51

Bedene, Aljaz GBR 54

Vesely, Jiri CZE 55

Zverev, Alexander GER 56

Mannarino, Adrian FRA 58

Istomin, Denis UZB 63

Kudla, Denis USA 64

Cervantes, Inigo ESP 65

Munoz de la Nava, Daniel ESP 72

Giraldo, Santiago COL 77

Young, Donald USA 79

Donskoy, Evgeny RUS 80

Dodig, Ivan CRO 81

Schwartzman, Diego ARG 83

Kukushkin, Mikhail KAZ 84

Marchenko, Illya UKR 85

Cecchinato, Marco ITA 91

Stakhovsky, Sergiy UKR 92

About Irving Tennis Classic

The Irving Tennis Classic (ITC) is an international Challenger Level event governed by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), with players competing to earn valuable Emirates Ranking points and $125,000.00 USD in prize money. The tournament features a 32-player singles draw and a 16-team doubles draw. The annual event is purposely held between the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California and the Miami Open in Florida, which helps to attract such high level players. Unlike other ATP Challenger Level events, top 50 ATP ranked players in the world can play in the Irving Tennis Classic without obtaining a wildcard, as they prepare for the Miami Open.  For more information about the Irving Tennis Classic, go to the ITC website at IrvingTennisClassic.com or follow the ITC tournament on Twitter (@irvingclassic) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/irvingtennisclassic/).