The Gustavus contingent at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Small College Championships had an interesting first day highlighted by Andy Bryan advancing to the semifinals in singles and teaming with Charlie Paukert to advance to the semifinals in doubles on the men’s side. On the women’s side Jenni White and Sierra Krebsbach dropped first round matches in singles, but split two matches in doubles play and will now play for third place in the doubles draw. The tournament is being played at the Copeland-Cox Tennis Center in Mobile, Alabama.
In men’s singles play, Andy Bryan defeated Oliver Gaines of Trinity 6-0, 6-2. Bryan will now play Dan Greenberg of Williams in a semifinals singles match on Friday morning. In men’s doubles play, Bryan and Charlie Paukert defeated Alex Buxbaum and Tom Kinrade of Haverford 6-2, 6-3 and the duo will now face Michael Goodwin and Oliver Lopp of Emory in a semifinal match on Friday afternoon.
In women’s singles play, Jenni White lost to Siobhan Finicane of Pomona-Pitzer 4-6, 1-6 in a first round match. Sierra Krebsbach, who was the runner-up to White at the Midwest Region Tournament was added to the singles draw at the ITA Small College Championships after one of the other regional champions was unable to participate. Krebsbach lost a marathon first round match to Jackie Shtemberg of the College of New Jersey 4-6, 6-4, 4-6. White will play Sabra Rogers of Emory, while Krebsbach will face Katie Tabb of Washington and Lee in consolation matches on Friday. In women’s doubles play, White and Krebsbach dropped the first set 7-6 (7-0 in the tiebreaker) and then held off four match points before rallying to win the second set 7-5. The duo then won the superbreaker 10-7 to earn a hard-fought first round victory over Jennifer Chui and Amy Staloch of Carnegie Mellon. White and Krebsbach were knocked out of the championship bracket by Alicia Hunt and Laura Steinmert of Trinity (TX) by the score of 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals. White and Krebsbach will now face Marissa Lin and Vindya Dayananda of Chicago University in the third place match on Saturday morning.