May 7, 1999

LAS VEGAS - UNLV's 43rd-ranked tennis team will send a singles entry and one doubles team to the 1999 Men's Tennis Championships to be played at Athens, Ga., May 26-30, the NCAA announced Friday.

Asaf Tishler received an automatic bid to the 64-player field as the top singles player in NCAA Region VII. Tishler, who was eliminated in his first NCAA match last year, is currently 20-7 on the season and ranked 33rd in the nation.

The senior from Tel Aviv, Israel, became only the fourth Rebel to earn more than one trip to the national event, joining a list that includes 1997 NCAA singles and doubles champion Luke Smith.

Also headed to Athens, but for the first time, is the doubles team of Nenad Zivkovic and Gregor Skorin. The sophomores became the first Rebel players in history to earn a No. 1 ranking last fall after they won the Clay Court Championship, which is part of the Collegiate Grand Slam.

Zivkovic and Skorin, both from Belgrade, Serbia, are currently 9-4 on the season. The duo, which has dropped to a ranking of 19th, earned an automatic bid to the 32-team field as the region's second seed behind Leif Meineke and Wesley and Moodie of Boise State. The UNLV doubles entry is the sixth to earn a trip to nationals in school history.

UNLV will compete as a team in the NCAA regional championship May 15-16 in Fresno, Calif.