Oct. 14, 1999

Notre Dame’s top-seeded Ryan Sachire rallied to beat Arizona’s Alex Aybar 6-7 (7-2), 6-1, 6-3 on Thursday in the first round of the 1999 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Men’s All-American Championships, the second leg of the ITA grand slam, held at the Penick-Allison Tennis Center at the University of Texas. Sachire, the second ranked singles player in the preseason ITA rankings, will face 67th-ranked Eduardo Gordilho of UL Lafayette in Friday’s second round. Gordilho advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Stanford’s Geoff Abrams.

Sachire is among the six seeds that advanced out of the first round of the 64-player singles draw. TCU’s second-seeded Esteban Carril and Florida’s seventh-seeded Justin O’Neal lost their first-round matches. Aybar was the nation's top-ranked junior college player in 1997 and '98 for Tyler (Texas) Junior College before enrolling at Arizona. After losing the first set in a tiebreaker, Sachire won 12 of the final 16 games to improve to 9-2 all-time at the ITA Men’s All-American Championships.

Sachire reached the final at the ’98 ITA Men’s All-American Championships before losing to Harvard’s James Blake and was a quarterfinalist as a sophomore in ’97. The top seeding marks the second for Sachire in as many grand slams for the Irish senior from Canfield, Ohio. Sachire turned in his best showing over at the T. Rowe Price National Clay Championships last month by reaching the semifinals as the top-seeded player in the first grand slam of the season.

The ITA All-American Championships have been played annually since 1979. This is the ninth straight year that this second leg of the ITA Grand Slam is taking place at the University of Texas. Between the two qualifying tournaments and main draw, over 350 players compete during the nine-day tournament, making it the largest NCAA Division I tennis tournament in the country. The ITA Grand Slam also includes the T. Rowe Price National Clay Court Championships, the Rolex National Indoor Championships in February and the NCAA Championship in May. The women's equivalent of the All-American - the Riviera Women's All-American Championships - takes place in Pacific Palisades, Calif., next week.