Brenau Hosted The USTA/ITA Regional Championships

October 3, 2012

After the three-day-long 2012 U.S. Tennis Association/Intercollegiate Tennis Championships at Brenau University ended Sunday, Sept. 30, five players from Auburn University-Montgomery will head to the national championship tournament in Mobile, Ala., Oct.11-14.

The winners were Tiffany Williams (women's singles), Jade Curtis and Morgane Zowczak (women's doubles), Nicolas Pinones-Haltenhoff (men's singles and doubles) and Tim Hewitt (men's doubles).

Among the 39 participating women, Brenau's No. 2-seeded Dominika Jasova narrowly missed her trip to the USTA/ITA National Championship by falling in the final to AUM's No. 6-seeded Tiffany William in a tough two-set match, 7-5, 7-6 (8).

The Warhawk doubles team of Zowczak and Curtis dominated the women's finals in two sets, 6-4, 6-0, beating Xavier University's Brion Flowers and Kourtney Howell. The Xavier team advanced to the finals after a close 8-6 match against the tough Brenau team of Eline Nagels and Stephanie Moniz.

In an interesting twist, the men's singles final concluded the championships on Sunday afternoon when AUM No.1-seeded Pinones-Haltenhoff took on No.3-seeded Hewitt and came away with a two-set win, 6-3, 6-4. Then, Pinones-Haltenhoff and Hewitt teamed up to dominate the doubles final 6-3, 6-1 against another Warhawk team of Zinelabidine Jouini and Othmane Lalami.

This is the first time Brenau hosted the USTA/ITA Regional Championship. Head Tennis Coach Andre Ferreira said he hopes it will not be the last.

"It was a lot of fun to host the event at Brenau and in Gainesville," he said. "Thanks to the help of so many people, including Assistant Coach John Davis, as well as our Brenau athletic department, administration and the Gainesville community, we put together an exciting tournament. Bringing an event of this caliber to our region, which is home to so many tennis enthusiasts, is absolutely fantastic. I am sure the spectators were impressed by the level of tennis on both the men's and women's sides. It is great for Brenau tennis because it creates awareness in the community, which hopefully will generate more interest in NAIA college tennis in the future."