Four members of the Case Western Reserve University women's tennis team advanced past the first day of the main draw of the ITA Fall Regional Championship, held in St. Louis, Missouri at the Tao and Dwight Davis Tennis Centers on the campus of Washington University of St. Louis on Friday.
In doubles action, second-seeded sophomores Hannah Kassaie and Lily McCloskey defeated MJ Campos and Margaret Bugnacki of Lake Forest 8-1 in the round of 32. The duo will face ninth-seeded Perene Wang and Claudia Ng from the University of Chicago in round of 16. Additionally, the ninth-seeded pair of sophomore Radha Patel and first-year Katalina Wang bested John Carroll University's Morgan Dobos and Mia Zivkovic in the round of 32 by a score of 8-4. Patel and Wang advanced to face fourth-seeded Karen Gao and Eliana Hanna from WashU on Saturday.
In the first round, both Spartan doubles pairings secured victories, with sophomore Anna Kan and senior Nina Hoog winning 8-5 over Carolyn Tsung and Maggie Yang from WashU, and first-year Asha Shukla and junior Pallavi Goculdas defeating Shanzay Ali and Katie Lee from Ohio Wesleyan 8-6. Both pairings lost 6-8 in the round of 32 to move into the consolation bracket.
In singles action both Kassaie and McCloskey advanced to the round of 16. Kassaie, seeded second in the draw, defeated Dobos 6-3, 6-4 in the first round and bested Nikol Obradovic from Millikin 6-1, 6-1 in the second round. Kassaie will square off against Chicago's Brooke Pedersen in the round of 16 on Saturday. McCloskey, seeded fourth in the bracket, won 6-1, 6-1 over Bissola Lassissi of Principia in the round of 64 and 6-1, 6-3 over Transylvania's Jessica Burton in the round of 32. She will face ninth-seeded Nina Moravek in the round of 16.
Kan reached the round of 32 with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Adrian's Claire Earley, but fell to ninth-seeded Eleni Lazaridou from Kenyon 4-6, 5-7, forcing her into the consolation draw. Wang and Patel rebounded from losses in the first round to win in their first consolation match and advance to that bracket's round of 16.
In the back draws, Shuka went 1-1 in singles play, while Hoog went 2-0 to advance to the semifinals of the green bracket. First-year Elsa Syed and junior Chloe Ku each advanced to the semifinals of the blue singles bracket with wins on Friday.
The ITA Regional Championships resume on Saturday with doubles action starting at 10 a.m. ET.
