SLU Takes Second at Tennis on Campus Section Championships

The St. Louis University Tennis on Campus team: Rohan Chinwalla, Jacqueline Hijaouy, Andrea Luzaic, PJ Panesar, Katherine Tang, Kenji Yanaba and Aubrey Zahuranec.

Des Moines, Iowa was the place to be March 7-8 for the USTA Missouri Valley Tennis on Campus Sectional Championships. USTA St. Louis had a tremendous showing, with Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, St. Louis University (SLU) and Washington University - St. Louis bringing teams to Lifetime Athletic for some hearty competition.

Since its inception in 2000 with a handful of schools, the Tennis on Campus has grown to 600 colleges and universities representing 15 USTA Sections. In partnership with the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association and World Team Tennis (WTT), it is dedicated to bringing the best possible experience to collegiate club tennis players. 

The top four teams were to advance to the USTA Tennis on Campus National Championships in early April, but they have since been cancelled due to the USTA suspension of play following the recent COVID-19 outbreak.

SLU played some high-quality tennis over the course of the weekend, finishing the tournament as runners-up behind the University of Iowa. 

Rohan Chinwalla, senior captain of the SLU team said the team was expecting to finish well, but the team was very pleased with the second-place finish.

“We went into the tournament fully expecting to qualify for Nationals and making it all the way to the finals was just an added bonus,” he said. “Although Nationals got cancelled, we were still excited to have gotten that far as it was the first time in a while our club had qualified for Nationals.” 

SLU emerged as winners of the Australian pool, in which they faced Iowa State University, the University of Nebraska and Truman State University. In the quarterfinals, the Billikens came out victorious against Mizzou; they then went on to defeat Kansas State in the semifinals as well.

The Hawkeyes defeated SLU in the finals to take home the Section Championship title. 

As this year is Chinwalla’s final season with the Tennis on Campus program, he is especially pleased the team performed so well at Sectionals. The program is one of his best collegiate experiences.

“Tennis on Campus has provided all of us an incredible opportunity to keep playing tennis at a competitive level in college,” he said. “All of us had played USTA tournaments regularly before college, so Tennis on Campus gives us the ability to continue that but in a fun team atmosphere. It’s been an extremely unique experience and is one of my fondest memories from college.”