VALDOSTA, Ga. – Valdosta State men's tennis doubles duo of sophomore Luca Mack and sophomore Rodrigo Carvalho head to Rome, Ga., for the ITA Cup this week.  Mack/Carvalho open Thursday at 2 p.m. as the No. 4-seed in the doubles draw.
 
The tandem won the ITA South Region Championship in September with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Auburn Montgomery's duo of Muhamad Bedwan and David Rieme to qualify for the ITA Cup.  Mack/Carvalho defeated top-seeded Salvdor Bandeira and Gabriel Nery of West Florida in the Round of 16 and defeated Ghali Mensour and Vincent Theil of Saint Leo in the semifinals to reach the championship match.
 
Mack/Carvalho battle Hillsdale (Mich.) duo of Brennan Cimpeanu and Sean Barstow who are making the Chargers' first appearance in the national event in program history.  The Round of 16 begins Thursday and Mack/Carvalho will battle Cimpeanu/Barstow at 2 p.m.  
 
If Mack/Carvalho get past Cimpeanu/Barstow, they would face the winner of Jonathan Bulmer/Juan-Louis van Antwerpen of Davenport (Mich.) or Leyton Bohren/Miha Velicki of Azusa Pacific (Calif.) in the quarterfinals.  
 
Only 16 players and 16 doubles teams from NCAA Division II programs across the country qualify for the DII Draw at the ITA Cup, which began in 1986 as the Small College Nationals and has been run every year since.  
 
The ITA Cup consists of eight tournaments, with singles and doubles action for 16 select participants from NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, NAIA and the Junior College ranks.
The winner of each tournament is automatically entered into a wild card spot in the 64-participant Oracle ITA National Fall Championships in November that consists of the best collegiate tennis players in the country regardless of classification, and the four singles and doubles champions are also entered into a bracket on Sunday to compete for an overall ITA Cup title across all small-school classifications as well.
VSU has had success at this event winning the doubles portion twice in 2001 and 2011.   In 2001, former Blazer duo of Tobias Huning and Marco Borgeus won and advanced to the "Super Bowl" where in Dallas, Texas, where they defeated a team from University of Texas and lost to a doubles team from Virginia Tech.  
 
Exactly 10 years later, Blazer tandem of Christian Hanson and Luis Loefler won the ITA Cup and advanced to Flushing Meadows, N.Y., where they defeated a team from University of Tennessee and lost to a team from Cal.  The event took place at the U.S. Open Tennis Complex.
 
Click on the links to the right of this story to for the draw and live streaming of the matches.  
 
Check back with vstateblazers.com for complete recaps of the matches for Mack/Carvalho.