Jan. 21, 2003

NORFOLK, VA. - Junior All-American Nataly Cahana (Qiriat Bialik, Isreal) and the men's doubles team of Zoltan Csanadi (Timisoara, Romania) and Izak van der Merwe ( Kempton Park, South Africa) are all ranked in the nation's top five by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.

Cahana,a two-time All-American is currently ranked fifth nationally and the doubles team of Csanadi and van der Merwe are ranked fourth nationally.

Csanadi and van der Merwe got national attention by reaching the finals of the Omni Hotels National Intercollegiate Indoor Tennis Championships back in November. The duo knocked off the top seeded team of Michael Calkin and Amer Delic of Illinois, 8-4 and then defeated the No. 3 seeds Ryan Redondo and Oliver Maiberger of San Diego State, 9-7 before losing to Richard and William Barker of Rice, 8-2 in the championship match. The ODU duo were 15-2 in the fall season.

Cahana reached the finals of the Riviera ITA All-American Championships for the second straight year. She lost to Duke's Kelly McCain, 5-7, 6-2,6-1 in the title match. She was the CAA Co-Women's Tennis Player of the Year last season.

As a team, ODU's men's squad is ranked 65th.