Tallahassee, Fla.--Senior Victor Valente advanced to the finals at the ITA Southeast Regional Championships and will play on Monday morning against Florida's Florent Diep with an automatic invite to the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. on the line.

Georgia State's Valente defeated two Georgia Tech men's tennis players on Sunday to advance to the finals. First he knocked off Juan Melian 6-3, 6-1 in the quarterfinals before taking down Juan Spir 7-6 (3), 6-4 in the semifinals. Spir was the second seed in the highly-competitive tournament.

"Victor has shown great leadership and improved his game tremendously the past few weeks," first-year GSU head coach Joerg Barthel said. "Overall this has been an outstanding tournament for our team and program with multiple wins against players from strong teams and conferences. Assistant coach Cesar Vargas and I are excited about this group and the future of the program."

By advancing to the finals, Valente can now be considered for an at-large selection to the prestigious USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships. There are six at-large spots available for the tournament with each at-large selection having to at least finished as a runner-up at their ITA Regional Championship.

The Southeast region is regarded as one of the strongest of the 12 different regions as broken down by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. The region boasts eight nationally-ranked teams as of last year's final rankings in Georgia (5), Florida (12), Florida State (32), South Florida (51), Georgia State (60), Georgia Tech (62), North Florida (66) and Miami (67). All results from this weekend's ITA-sanctioned tournament will be recorded for individual singles and doubles results only.

Both final matches of the singles and doubles draws will take place Monday morning at the Scott Speicher Tennis Center at Florida State University. The singles and doubles winners from all 12 regional sites will earn bids to the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. set to begin in early November.

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