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Trio will join fellow newcomers Smith and Vardag

June 14, 2006

Boca Raton, FL - Olivier Sajous, Osvaldo Benitez and Lawrence Harradine have signed with Florida Atlantic University men's tennis, announced head coach David Komie, Wednesday. The trio will join Corey Smith and Daniel Vardag who combine for an incoming class that is heralded by Tennisrecruiting.net as one of the nation's top-20 classes.

"The signing of these three players along with Corey Smith and Dan Vardag positions FAU men's tennis future return to national prominence," said Komie. "We are also adding three strong transfer players so essentially this will be a new team that will be young but talented and deep."

Sajous will bring Davis Cup experience to FAU after representing his native country, Haiti. He is the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 2005 Male Player of the Year and is currently ranked third in Florida's Men's Open division. In the last year, Sajous has defeated Reid Carleton, Holden Seguso and Bradley Mixson, each of whom are listed as "Blue Chip". That is the highest ranking a player can receive by Tennisrecruiting.net and only a handful of players in each class receive such an accolade. Typically, "Blue Chip" players turn professional prior to college or attend only the elite college tennis programs. He has also been selected to compete among the world's elite juniors at the Luxilon Cup which is held at the NASDAQ ATP event in Key Biscayne.

Benitez holds a top-30 Men's Open division rank in his native Argentina. He attended high school in Florida and won the Florida State High School Singles Championship as a freshman. He replicated his singles accomplishment as a sophomore and added the doubles championship title. In 2005, Benitez reached the third round of qualifying at the Vero Beach Futures event competing as an amateur.

Harradine, a native of Switzerland, has trained extensively at the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona, Spain, one of the top tennis academies in the world. In January 2006, he made his breakthrough by capturing the ITF United Arab Emirates Junior Championships. To win the event, Harradine won three-consecutive three-set matches, all against juniors ranked in the World's top 500. The final match saw Harradine serving down 4-5, love 40 (triple match point). His great tenacity and courage powered the come-back tiebreak victory.

The newcomers will begin classes in the fall and are scheduled to open collegiate play at the Southern Intercollegiates, September 8-10, in Athens, GA.