The Valparaiso University tennis team began play at the ITA Midwest Regional, hosted by the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Ill. this weekend. Alexandra Popa (Glenview, Ill. / Glenbrook South) picked up a victory in the consolation singles draw on Thursday.  
 
How It Happened

• In the first round of singles qualifying, Popa and Andrea Delgado (Richmond, Texas / Foster [Dallas Baptist]) both played against Big Ten adversaries from Northwestern on Thursday. Popa's match was particularly tight, as Mika Dagan Fruchtman eked out a 6-4, 6-4 victory.
• After dropping challenging matches, both players turned around to play in the consolation draw. Popa bounced back to beat Western Michigan's Julia Frazier 7-5, 6-2. Delgado faced off with a conference foe, Illinois State's Emma Peretti, and battled back to force a third-set tiebreak only to drop a close breaker as Peretti took the match 2-6, 6-2, 10-7.
• Junior Lacey Tanner (Fort Pierce, Fla. / Florida Virtual School) was placed directly in the main draw, where she will face Illinois' Tess Bucher on Friday at 2:30 p.m. Doubles action also gets underway on Friday as Popa and Cathy Beckmann (Indianapolis, Ind. / Bishop Chatard) clash with the UIC tandem of Dongke Liu and Kristina Tai at 9 a.m. In addition, Tanner and Brynn Steven (Wichita, Kan. / Bishop Carroll) will face off with an Eastern Michigan pair to begin their doubles quest at 11 a.m.

Inside the Matches

• Popa picked up her third singles win of the fall and the 11^th of her collegiate career.
• Popa's tight first-round match came against Dagan Fruchtman, who was a 20-match winner in singles and a top-100 player in doubles last season. Delgado played Marelie Raath, another top-100 doubles player from a year ago who enjoyed a 20-win singles campaign.

Thoughts from Head Coach James Gleghorn
"We had solid performances against seeded players in the first round of the qualifying. Popa played well and almost pulled off the upset against Northwestern!"
 
"We headed right back on the court for a second match, and Andrea lost a heartbreaker in the third set super tiebreaker. She played with a lot of heart today!"
 
"Alexandra came out a little shaky in her match against Western Michigan, but by the middle of the first set, she started to dominate play, and after closing out the first set 7–5 she rolled in the second set 6-2. It was a solid win for Popa and it's going to create some momentum for tomorrow's doubles."
 
"Really looking forward to seeing how our number one and two doubles teams play in the main draw tomorrow morning. We have been playing really well in practice and I hope it pays off in the matches."
 
Up Next
The Regional continues on Friday. Links to live scoring and video are available on ValpoAthletics.com.