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Both the Yale men’s and women’s tennis teams are kicking off October with Intercollegiate Tennis Association individual competition in singles and doubles.

While ITA fall tournament results do not count towards team standings or records, they count towards singles and doubles national rankings. Three players — Theo Dean ’24, Michael Sun ’23 and Chelsea Kung ’23 — will compete in ITA All-American Championships, while the rest of the team’s competition will take place at a regional level. 

“This is a really strong and prestigious tournament,” said men’s head coach Chris Drake. “Even in the qualifying draw you find some of the best players in the country. It will be a great experience and tough challenge for Mike and Theo.”

The ITA Men’s All-American Championships will be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The rest of their team will join Dean and Sun this weekend in Philadelphia at the ITA Northeast Regionals.

Dean told the News that all team members are targeting improvement on the serve and return and that the team is hoping to improve the competitive energy and presence that they bring to tournaments.

“We are looking forward to the opportunity to compete and keep working on the things we’ve been focusing on in practice: being strong competitors, playing with the right mindset and good intentions, and being good teammates,” Dean wrote to the News. “Every player on our team is different. Some of our players are working on playing more aggressively and moving forward to the net more often. Others are working on being more solid and stable from the baseline.” 

Sun ended the 2022 season ranked at No. 123. Women’s captain Kung ended last season ranked No. 75 nationally in singles, jumping up in rankings after defeating former No. 1 singles player Daria Frayman of Princeton. Both teams treat ITA competition primarily as practice for the spring season and only secondarily as opportunities to improve rankings. 

The women’s team sent three doubles teams to Hanover, N.H. this weekend to compete in the ITA Northeast Regionals. There, Sophia Zaslow ’26 and Ann Wright Guerry ’26 posted a 8–7 victory over a team from UConn, before falling to a Harvard team 8–5.

“We’re super excited to get to compete alongside each other and help each other through matches,” Guerry said. “We’re focusing on keeping high intensity and focus in our practices.”

Squadmates Rebecca Lynn ’26 and Jamie Kim ’25 fell 8–4 to a team from Siena College while Rhea Shrivastava ’23 and Sasha Wood ’24 beat out a team from Boston University (8–5).

Kung will compete in North Carolina this week at the Women’s ITA All-American Championships. 

After ITA tournaments, the men’s team will next compete in Hanover at the Dartmouth Invitational from Oct. 21 to Oct. 23. The women’s next non-ITA matchplay will be at the Brown Invitational in Providence the same weekend.