FRESNO, Calif. - Azusa Pacific won a pair of titles this past week at the 2023 ITA Division II West Regional Championships, as Miruna Tudor won the women's singles championship, and Elias Emilio Walter and Miha Velicki captured the men's doubles title after three days of competition.

Tudor came out on top of the 64 player field after hard fought victories in six matches. On Thursday, Tudor won her opening match of the tournament in dominant 6-0, 6-0 fashion, and later that afternoon, she advanced to the round of 16 with a 2-6, 6-3, 10-2 win in a super tiebreaker. The following day, she once again started with a straight-set victory (6-0, 6-3), followed by a super tie break win (6-4, 4-6, 10-6) in the quarterfinals. On Saturday morning, Tudor punched her ticket to the final with a 6-4, 6-1 semifinal victory. In the championship match against Emily Hafner of Metro State, Tudor found herself in an early hole, after she fell 1-6 in the opening set. She bounced back in the second set with a 6-3 win to force yet another super tie break. In the super tie break, Tudor doubled up Hafner by a 10-5 tally to capture the regional title.

The women's team had six players entered in singles, and all six Cougars won their opening round matches. Madison Kane reached the semifinals, winning her first four matches of the tournament in straight sets.

Kane was also a semifinalist in doubles, as she played alongside Julia Jordan. Kane and Jordan won the first round by a 8-2 score, and then won in the round of 16 by an 8-3 tally. The duo then won their quarterfinal match 8-3, before falling in a tiebreak (8-9(4-7)) in the semifinals.

"I felt the team overall did a lot of good things. Miruna winning the tournament was a great accomplishment for her personally, as well as for our program and school," said head coach Mark Bohren.

On the men's side, Walter and Velicki captured the men's doubles crown with a 8-3 victory in the title match over Point Loma's Alexander Leischner and Nabeel Kahn. The pair opened with an 8-3 win in the round of 16, followed by an 8-1 triumph in the quarterfinals over teammates Brody Bohren and Soeren Grandke and then an 8-3 semifinal victory. "It was nice to see Miha and Elias win the doubles," said Coach Bohren, "They played solid all the way through the tournament."

In addition to their doubles crown, Walter and Velicki each reached the quarterfinals in the men's singles competition. Walter opened with a 6-0, 6-0 first round win, and then bounced back in the second round from a 0-6 defeat in the first set to win 6-2, 10-8. In the round of 16, Walter won in straight sets (6-2, 6-3) to advance to the quarterfinals. For Velicki, he started the tournament off with a 1-6 loss in the first set of the first round, but he responded with a 6-3 second set win and a super tie break triumph of 10-6. Velicki then won in straight sets in both the second round (6-2, 6-2) and round of 16 (6-1, 6-1).

Tudor and the duo of Walter and Velicki punched their tickets to the ITA Cup with their regional titles. The ITA Cup will be held October 12-16 in Rome, Georgia.