The first two of nine scheduled Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Fall Championships will get under way Saturday, October 6, as Shippensburg University is set to host the women’s and men’s individual tennis championships.  Saturday’s action begins at 10 a.m with men's and women's doubles.  Two rounds of doubles will be played before moving on to two rounds of singles.

Both the men’s and the women’s singles and doubles will be played on Saturday and Sunday in a single-elimination format.  Tournament play on Sunday begins at 9 a.m. 

Women
California senior Inga Chilingaryan is the top seed and two-time defending champion singles champion.  The reigning and two-time defending PSAC West Athlete of the Year did not lose a set last year as she posted a 6-1, 6-0 victory in the semifinals over Slippery Rock's Kayla Blackburn and defeated teammate Helena Van Eysendeyk 6-1, 6-3 in the championship match.

Two other teammates will provide tough competition for Chilingaryan as Van Eysendeyk is the second seed and Nina Kowalski is seeded sixth.  Van Eysendeyk recently won both the ITA East Regional singles and doubles championships.  Lisa Santoro, who finished second at the regional, paired with Van Eysendeyk to win the doubles competition but will compete with Olga Alekseeva as the second seed this weekend.

The third seed in singles is Kayla Blackburn, a junior from Slippery Rock.  Blackburn advanced to the singles semifinals a year ago before falling to eventual champion Chilingaryan.  In the doubles competition, Blackburn paired with Laura Handy as the No. 3 seed before falling to the doubles champions in California's Yumi Matsuto and Lisa Santoro.

This year at ITA East Regionals , Blackburn fell to Alekseeva in her first singles match, but rebounded in the doubles competition.  There, she and sister Samantha Blackburn advanced to the finals, losing to the California duo of Van Eysendeyk and Santoro, 6-1, 6-4.  The sisters are this year's expected favorites and the No. 1 doubles seed.

Kutztown's Rohini Das is seeded fourth, with IUP's Andriana Nunic fifth.  Das advanced to the quarterfinals of the East Regional while Nunic fell in her first match.

In doubles action, Bloomsburg's Katie Hasyn and Tracy Nissenbaum enter as the No. 3 seed.  Kutztown's duo of Das and Barbara Joerns are seeded fourth.  Also returning from last year are IUP's Andriana Nunic and Caitlin Heston, West Chester's Maria Kostaris and Rose Conwell, and Clarion's Corin Rombach with new partner Devin Rombach.

MEN
Last year at the conference championship, Kutztown's Santiago Baquerizo was the No. 1 seed but had his bid for a second consecutive singles title denied as second-seeded Dan Gal of Bloomsburg upset Baquerizo, 6-2, 7-6 (10-8), in the championship match. 

This year, Baquerizo is again the top seed but Bloomsburg's Ryan Chow takes over as the No. 2 seed.  Chow lost to Gal in the semifinals of the conference tournament a year ago but paired with him to win the doubles championship, defeating Rubens Vianna and Arpit Sharma of Kutztown.

The third seed in the men's singles competition also belongs to Kutztown as Lukas Labitsch sits at No. 3.  Labitsch most recently made it to the singles quarterfinals of the ITA East Regional before advancing to the doubles final with Baquerizo. 

In doubles action, Labitsch and Baquerizo are the expected favorites and the No. 1 seed.  The Bloomsburg duo of Chow and Gal are the No. 2 seed and should provide tough competition for the Kutztown pair. 

Also back from last year is East Stroudsburg's Jeff Kurz and West Chester's Andrew Pollack.  Both have a new partner from a year ago, as Kurz will pair with Jared Howat and Pollack will pair with Jared Raben.

In its current format, the individual championships were inaugurated in the 2003-04 academic year and had been scheduled as a spring event for the first three years.  The individual championships were always slated for a week after the team championships.  This is the second year the event will take place in the fall.  The team championship will remain in the spring.

Results of the tournament can be found on the Shippensburg Athletics Web site.

First round match ups: