DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Ten Embry-Riddle tennis players are on their way to Pensacola to compete in the 2019 USTA/ITA Division II South Region Championships. The four-day tournament gets underway on Friday and is being hosted by the University of West Florida at the Ralph "Skeeter" Carson Tennis Complex and the Roger Scott Tennis Center.

For the men, the tandem of Juan Ortiz Couder and Andres Donayre will look to defend their 2018 regional doubles title. The duo is seeded second in the 31-team bracket and will take the court at 9 a.m. on Friday against Spring Hill's Cedric Nitz and Fergus O'Rourke. Prior to that match, Lucas Bos and Alexis Guedy will face Georg Trompler and Tanguy David at 8 a.m.

Ortiz Couder is a redshirt senior who holds the distinction of being the only player in program history to compete in five ITA regional tournaments, and he will be the first to take the court in singles play at 11 a.m. when he goes up against Saint Leo's Ghali Mensour. Freshman Fernando Alonso will face fifth-seeded Carlos Gomez of Barry at 11:30 a.m. followed by Donayre's 1 p.m. match against Nitz and Guedy's 1:30 p.m. tilt against Alabama-Huntsville's Sebastian Rohrbach. 

Competition for the Eagles in the women's bracket begins with a play-in singles match between ERAU's Sabrina Ehrenfort and Mississippi College's Victoria Roberts. Doubles play starts at 10 a.m. when Roberta Krvajica and Georgina Wood face West Florida's Gabriela Araujo and Karolina Sliwanowiccz, and Ixtaso Blanco and Julia Mautner take on Aneta Golawska and Paulina Cota from Mississippi College.

At 12:30, Krvajica and Wood take the court in singles, with Krvajica facing Rollins' Alex Borg and Wood, who is playing in her fourth ITA regional, going up against Delta State's Fabiola Cardenas. Blanco will square off against Mississippi College's Julia McCarty in her singles opener at 2 p.m.

Singles and doubles champions from the four-day tournament will earn an automatic berth to the 2019 Oracle ITA Cup, which is scheduled for October 17-20, 2019.