From Carnegie Mellon University Athletics

Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis senior Abhishek Alla (Hyderabad, India/IMG Pendleton School) won the USTA/ITA Southeast Regional Singles Championship on Monday, October 5 while senior Yuvraj Kumar (New Delhi, India/Millfield School) and freshman Daniel Levine (Highland Park, Ill./Boca Prep International School) played for the doubles championship. All matches were played at the University of Mary Washington.

The day started with a battle of teammates in the doubles semifinals, as the pair of Kumar and Levine won a tiebreaker thriller against junior Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central) and sophomore Jeffrey Chen (Carmel, Ind./Carmel). The match was back-and-forth from the beginning and Kumar and Levine broke Chen's serve to tie it at 7-7 before Zheng held serve to later tie it at 8-8 forcing the tiebreaker. From that point, Kumar and Levine were on top, winning the tiebreaker 7-2.

In the singles semifinals, Alla outlasted Levine, who had just completed his doubles semifinals, 6-2, 6-0, to advance to his third consecutive regional championship match.

Alla went on to defeat Michael Buxbaum of Johns Hopkins University in the finals 6-3, 6-1. The contest was a rematch of last year's ITA Southeast Regional Championship which Buxbaum took in three sets (7-6(7-0), 2-6, 6-4).

The day ended with Kumar and Levine facing Buxbaum and Emerson Walsh in the doubles final. A tight match throughout, the pair from Johns Hopkins won out, 7-5, 6-3.

Alla will return to the USTA/ITA National Championship, an event he won in 2013 as a sophomore, on Thursday, October 15 at the Palmetto Tennis Center in Sumter, South Carolina.