ITA Conference Masters opens Thursday with NCAA berths at stake

The 32-player singles draw and 32-pair doubles field run through Sunday. Four singles semifinalists and two doubles finalists qualify for the NCAA championships, set for Nov. 17-22 at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Georgia.

North Alabama said Alberto Altur qualified by winning the ASUN Individual Championship on Oct. 24, going 5-0 from Oct. 22-24 and closing with a 6-1, 6-1 final. Each Division I conference individual winner received an automatic bid. Purdue said Lorenzo Balducci took the Big Ten place as the highest-ranked player in the conference without an NCAA Individual Championships bid. The 32-player singles bracket has one player from each conference.

The Conference Masters is one route to the NCAA championships. The four sectionals are another, with six singles players and three doubles teams advancing from each, Georgia said.

One place per conference in singles

Balducci is trying to join teammate Nour Fathalla, who secured his NCAA Individual Championships spot at the Ohio Valley Regional last month, Purdue said. Georgia's Linea Bajraliu fills the SEC slot, and the school said it has nine players across the two events this week: five in singles at the South Sectional in Knoxville, three doubles teams there, and Bajraliu in Rome. Three of the doubles players also appear in singles.

Pow takes No. 2 seed in singles and doubles

Wake Forest said Luca Pow is the No. 2 seed in singles and opens against Harvard's Michael Major on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. The Wake Forest senior has surpassed 30 singles victories in three consecutive seasons and carries a 10-1 career record in NCAA Tournament singles matches. He also plays doubles with Cornelius Shalmi; the pair is seeded second and meets Lehigh's Alex Van Lumich and Rafael Gracie on Thursday at 3 p.m. Wake Forest already has one qualifier for Athens: Dominick Mosejczuk, who qualified at the ITA All-American Championships in September.

Charlotte pair won American Conference title

Charlotte said Shona Nakano and Amalia Widdowson entered the American Conference Individual Championships unseeded and won the doubles title, beating the No. 1 seed from Wichita State, ranked No. 50 nationally, in the final. The pair won four matches in a row for the title. They face Nebraska Omaha's Khayli Buckels and Katelynn Kock in the round of 32 on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

Abilene Christian pair makes history

Abilene Christian said Gus Tettamble and Luis Jose Nakamine are the first ACU doubles pair to reach the Conference Masters, after winning the ASUN Individual Tournament in Nashville on Oct. 24. They are part of a doubles field of 32. ACU said they cruised through the semifinals earlier that day, then fell behind 6-1 in the final, saved a match point in the breaker and came back.

Nakamine said of the final: "We started nervous. Between the break, we kind of cooled down a lot, and they were really locked in from the first point."