THIBODAUX, La. – The Loyola Wolf Pack women's tennis team opened the 2025 fall schedule with the ITA Gulf Regional Championships, which concluded Sunday at the Thibodaux Regional Sports Complex. Loyola graduate students Avery Frierson and Adele Fereres reached the final of the doubles tournament, where they won the first set but ultimately fell in a third-set super tiebreak.
Six women competed for the Wolf Pack over the weekend, as the grad students were joined by junior Avrora Volkova, sophomore Bianca Harris, and freshmen Sofia Amodu and Presha Shanthamoorthi.
Fereres and Frierson's performance in doubles was the highlight of the tournament, as the duo won four matches over the weekend. Both in their fourth year playing in New Orleans, Fereres and Frierson won 8-4 over a team from Louisiana Christian, 8-4 over the fourth-seeded team from Dillard, and 8-2 over two Xavier newcomers to advance to the semis. They then prevailed in a tiebreaker 9-7 to upset the top overall seed, Victoria Vieten and Isabella Lechuga of William Carey, 9-8.
The doubles championship featured Frierson and Fereres against the No. 3 seeded team from Xavier, Maja Brnic and McKenna Wheatley, who has won the last three ITA regional championships in doubles. The Wolf Pack pair came out strong in the first set, going up 3-0 in the match before XULA got on the scoreboard with back-to-back games. The Pack would go on to win the next three games and take the first set 6-2, but Xavier bounced back to win the second one 6-3 and force a deciding third set.
Both teams had at least one match point in the super tiebreak. The Gold Nuggets duo led 9-8, but Fereres and Frierson won two straight points to earn their own match point at 10-9. Xavier, however, won the next three to clinch the match.
Volkova and Harris also earned a victory in doubles, winning 9-7 over a team from Texas A&M Texarkana before falling in the next round to the No. 3 seed from Xavier.
In singles, Shanthamoorthi won her first matchup despite dropping the first set, taking down eighth-seeded Truc Tran from Dillard 3-6, 6-1, 10-6. She then got past Our Lady of the Lake's Marie Peters in straight sets (7-6, 6-0) before falling in the quarterfinal round against eventual champion Victoria Vieten in a close match, 6-4, 6-4. Amodu and Fereres each played tough opening-round matchups, falling in close third-set super tiebreaks.
Next on the schedule, the Wolf Pack will head to Dillard University's tennis courts for the Bleu Devils' fall invitational on October 18. Beginning the same weekend as the Dillard tournament is the ITA Cup in Rome, Ga., for which Fereres and Frierson, as regional finalists, could possibly qualify.
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