RESULTS
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (October 27, 2019) – A year after becoming the first Northern Arizona women's tennis player to win the ITA Mountain Regional singles championship, senior
Chiara Tomasetti is now a two-time regional champion. Tomasetti dominated Colorado's Sara Nayar, 6-2, 6-1, on Sunday at the Fertitta Tennis Complex to conclude commanding championship performance over the last five days.
"You just can't stop her," said head coach
Ewa Bogusz. "Chiara is so determined. She knew it would be a tough task to come back here and do it back-to-back, yet she worked even harder and she exceeded the expectations beating top layers in our region. I want to shout out Coach Jordan (Gobatie) as well because he's spent a lot of extra time to make sure Chiara was ready for this."
Tomasetti's regional victory qualifies her for the Oracle ITA National Fall Championships starting Nov. 7 in Newport Beach, Calif.
Although Sunday's championship matchup was between two nationally-ranked players – Tomasetti at No. 71 and Nayar at No. 65 – there was little doubt throughout the match. Tomasetti flexed on Nayar and dropped just three games to clinch her sixth victory of the tournament.
Tomasetti showed why she was the top seed by not dropping a set in all week and nine of her 12 set victories were by scores of 6-0, 6-1 or 6-2.
The fourth-year Lumberjack nearly had company at the fall-ending National Fall Championships, but sophomore
Adrianna Sosnowska and freshman
Mimi Bland fell just short of claiming the doubles title. Sosnowska and Bland went toe-to-toe with UNLV's seventh-seeded pairing Izumi Asano and En-Pei Huang with the Rebels' tandem earned a 7-5, 6-4 victory.
The loss did not diminish Sosnowska and Bland's Mountain Regional performance. Starting the week as an unseeded duo, Sosnowska and Bland racked up five victories to put them in a position to qualify for the National Fall Championships.
"I'm so proud of what Mimi and Ada achieved here," Bogusz said. "This is a huge accomplishment for this young team of a sophomore and a freshman. They played steady throughout the entire tournament and they are a tough team. We came up a little short in the final, but the sky is the limit for them and I'm excited to see what they can do together."
Sunday concluded an exceptional weekend in which the Lumberjacks posted a 17-12 singles record.. Behind Tomasetti's 6-0 record, sophomore
Emilie Haakansson won three matches and Sosnowska, Bland and freshman
Elinor Beazley each posted two wins. All seven 'Jacks won at least one singles match.
NAU also went 8-4 in doubles with Tomasetti and Haakansson going 3-1 and reaching the quarterfinals in addition to Sosnowska and Bland's run to the finals.
"We are happy for this team and how they did this week," Bogusz said. "On top of some good wins, they faced a lot of quality opponents we have in the Mountain region. They took a lot out of it, saw what they need to work on and they are all committed to getting better every day. I also want to give a shoutout to Emilie. She had really wins versus Pac-12 opponents, but most importantly she played high level tennis."
The Lumberjacks will play next at the GCU Invitational in Phoenix this Friday through Sunday, Nov. 1-3.
