SRU’s Amaia Balaguer Brau followed her ITA (Intercollegiate Tennis Association) singles Division II Championship win by advancing to the ITA Cup quarterfinals in Rome, Ga. last Thursday.
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Cup is an annual singles and doubles national championship event. It is the only such event available to smaller schools in the NCAA Division II and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) levels.
Balaguer Brau’s first match of the cup was a dominant victory over the Academy of Art University’s Amelija Supulniece. She was one of five athletes in the round of 16 to take the win in two sets. Neither set provided a particularly dramatic finish as the Benicarlo, Spain native came out on top 6-1, 6-2.
The win sprung Balaguer Brau into the quarterfinals to match up against Lee University’s Ashleigh Simes. Simes went 22-11 in singles matches for Lee between 2022 and 2023.
Balaguer Brau opened her Oct. 11 match strong with a 6-3 first-set win but could not maintain the momentum. Simes bounced back in the second and third sets, taking them both 6-1, 6-3. The loss ended the Slippery Rock representative’s hopes for an ITA Cup championship appearance before the semifinals.
Simes would go on to defeat Angelina Linnikova of the University of North Georgia to take the crown in the Division II women’s singles division.
Balaguer Brau faced off with one more opponent at the ITA Cup in a consolation match against Midwestern State University’s Jessica Binzari, who also fell in the quarterfinals. Binazari lost her tournament match in similar fashion to Balaguer Brau, taking the first set of her quarterfinal matchup 6-3 before falling in the latter two 6-2, 6-2.
Binzari won the resulting Oct. 12 consolation tilt 6-4, 6-1.
Following the cup, Balaguer Brau’s career singles record remains comfortably above .500 at 28-12.
