Big Ten Tennis Takes Three of Four ITA Regional Titles

Nearly all of this year’s ITA Regional champions in the Midwest are all Big Ten players and they will be representing their conference at next week’s ITA National Indoor Championships.
At the men’s event, held at the University of Notre Dame, it was an all Ohio State singles final with the freshman the winner.  Blaz Rola defeated Matt Allare (left), 7-5,6-4 , to become the fourth Buckeye in five years to win this event (Wisconsin’s Moritz Baumann won last year).

Allare didn’t go home empty-handed, though, as he and teammate Peter Kobelt took the doubles title with a tight 9-8(8) win over Illini Dennis Nevolo and Abe Souza.  Ohio State Head Coach Ty Tucker was very happy with the sweep,  “We have put in the time and it was nice to see it pay off,” he said after the matches.

The women’s event at the University of Michigan came close to producing a home court winner, but Denise Muresan fell short in the finals, falling to Notre Dame’s Kristy Frilling.   Muresan will still get a spot in the ITA National Indoor Championships, to be held at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, NY.  She earned that place after reaching the semifinals at the ITA All-American Championships.  She will join Northwestern’s Linda Abu-Mushrefova and Nida Hamilton, who won the regional doubles title yesterday.