FORT WORTH, Texas – Tarleton State Tennis will face some of the top collegiate players in the state at the ITA Texas Regional Championships at TCU starting Thursday. 

Five Texans (Maria Castano, Adeliya Mukhutdinova, Ximena Morales, Clara Sobius, Duru Kuscu) will look to qualify for the main singles draw in Thursday’s qualifying singles round. Junior Emma Persson will face her first singles opponent in the main draw on Friday at 1 p.m. 

Tarleton State will also have a pair of doubles teams competing in Fort Worth. Junior Ximena Morales will team up with freshman Maria Castano and will play their first doubles match on Friday at 8 a.m. Persson will compete with senior Noelia Lorca and play their first doubles match on Friday at 8:45 a.m. 

Junior Adeliya Mukhutdinova shined for the Texans in September, finishing last month with an 8-1 singles record. She has not lost a singles match since Sept. 7. 

Mukhutdinvoa combined for six singles victories in Tarleton State’s last two events, going a perfect 3-0 in singles at both the Mountaineer Hidden Duals and the Wildcat Invite. Not losing a set in the Wildcat Invite, Mukhutdinova won 75% of her games in Abilene this past weekend. 

Freshmen Maria Castano and Duru Kuscu led the Texans in the Wildcat Invite hosted by Abilene Christian September 27-29. Castano was a finalist in her Flight C singles bracket, defeating opponents from SMU and Abilene Christian before falling to Elena Daskalova of Texas Tech in the final match. The Dominican Republic native captured the Flight B Doubles Title with junior Clara Sobius. 

Despite losing her first singles match to Texas Tech’s Arina Oreshchenkova, freshman Duru Kuscu bounced back to clinch two consecutive singles matches in Flight B in the Wildcat Invite. The freshman from Turkey defeated both her opponents New Mexico State and UTEP in the two-set tiebreak. 

Morales and Sobius came out of the gates firing to start the fall. Going a perfect 3-0 in singles at the Texas State Invite, Morales won her fourth consecutive singles match in the fall season with a victory over Mercer’s Lea Kozierowski 6-1, 6-2 at the Mountaineer Hidden Duals. Sobius started the fall season with four singles wins, coming up with a victory over Queens’ Andreea Onitoiu 6-2, 6-2 at the Mountaineer Hidden Duals for her fourth. 

Founded in 1956, the ITA is the governing body of college tennis that oversees men’s and women’s varsity tennis at all levels – NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA and Junior/Community College. Comprising approximately 1,250 men’s and women’s head coaches representing over 1,700 teams across the country, the ITA oversees activities involving nearly 20,000 varsity college student-athletes. 

Action begins at 8 a.m. on Thursday and live scoring will be available here.