TYLER, Texas – Lubbock Christian University closed its second fall tennis event with a championship from
Pablo Segura, three runner-up finishes and an unbeaten doubles run from
Hayden Loffler and
Ayden Fraire as the Chaparrals and Lady Chaparrals competed Thursday through Saturday at the Tyler Invitational.
The individual event, co-hosted by UT Tyler and Tyler Junior College, was contested at UT Tyler's Summers Tennis Center and TJC's JoAnn Medlock Murphy Tennis Center and adjacent Brookshire Complex. There was no team scoring, with competition divided into singles and doubles flights.
Segura highlighted the weekend by capturing the men's Flight A singles championship, completing a 3-0 run through the top draw. The LCU senior opened with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Ouachita Baptist's Yarin Aebi before rallying past UT Tyler's Samuel Antwi 2-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-2) in the semifinals. Segura completed the title run with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Tyler Junior College's Willem de Waal.
Segura nearly added a doubles championship alongside freshman
Amir Gaisin. The tandem defeated TJC's Toby Eyrl-Collins and de Waal 8-3 in the Flight A quarterfinals and topped Antwi and Trevor Short of UT Tyler 8-5 in the semifinals. Tyler Junior College's Enrico Franchi and Ties De Regt denied LCU a second title with an 8-5 victory in the final.
Gaisin supplied another championship-match appearance in singles. Competing in Flight B, he rallied from a set down to defeat UT Tyler's Martin Despodov 5-7, 6-2, 1-0 (10-5) in the quarterfinals. Gaisin advanced past TJC's Toby Eyrl-Collins by retirement after claiming the opening set 7-6 (7-4), putting him in the final against Mississippi Christian's Mattia Ricci. Gaisin again forced a deciding match tiebreak before Ricci prevailed 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 (10-8).
Loffler and Fraire were perfect in men's Flight C doubles round-robin action and combined to win all three matches. The pair opened with an 8-4 victory over UT Tyler's Despodov and Job Japelj, rolled past Mississippi Christian's Evan Chapuis and De Santiago Robledo 8-2 and completed the unbeaten weekend by edging Ouachita Baptist's Mathyss Esclapez and Calin Simu 9-8 (7-2).
Loffler also went 2-1 in Flight E singles. He defeated Mississippi Christian's De Santiago Robledo 7-5, 6-3 and Chapuis 6-2, 6-2 before his final match went to a deciding tiebreak against Simu. The Ouachita Baptist player prevailed 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 1-0 (10-2).
Fraire competed in Flight D singles, dropping his opener to Mississippi Christian's Joshua Hinton 6-4, 6-4. UT Tyler's Japelj followed with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) consolation victory before Fraire advanced past TJC's Nic Serrano Garibay by walkover in his final scheduled match.
The Tyler Invitational also marked the season debuts of
Marco Seccia and
Andrea Rossi Principe. The Chaparral duo competed together in Flight B doubles and bounced back from an opening 8-5 loss to TJC's Alp Okay Meryumoglu and Xander Louis Pienaar with an 8-3 consolation victory over Ouachita Baptist's Tinus Mueller and Guillaume Randoux. UT Tyler's Manuel Lassacher and Arthur Schmitkel edged Seccia and Rossi Principe 9-7 in their final match.
The Lady Chaparrals were led in doubles by
Andrea De Bernardo and
Kristel Jativa, who advanced to the Flight A championship match. The LCU pairing opened with an 8-6 victory over Mississippi Christian's Klara Podskubkova and Katharina Weber and followed by cruising past TJC's Dina Lipovski and Idom Cho 8-2 in the semifinals. Mississippi Christian's Emily Buchanan and Ann Cabot Stockett narrowly prevented an LCU title, defeating De Bernardo and Jativa 9-7 in the final.
De Bernardo complemented the doubles run with a pair of singles victories in Flight A consolation play. Buchanan rallied past her 2-6, 6-2, 1-0 (10-8) in an opening match decided by a match tiebreak, but De Bernardo responded with consecutive straight-set victories. She defeated Podskubkova 6-3, 7-5 before closing her singles weekend with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over UT Tyler's Maria Antonio Ortega.
Jativa's opening singles match also went the distance. She took the opening set from TJC's Lipovski before Lipovski responded for a 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 1-0 (10-5) victory. Jativa bounced back by defeating Ortega 6-3, 7-5 in consolation action before Podskubkova prevailed 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 in Jativa's final singles match.
Naghely Garcia produced one of the Lady Chaparrals' most convincing singles victories, defeating UT Tyler's Claudia Di Leonardo 6-1, 6-1 in the Flight B quarterfinals. Mississippi Christian's Stockett stopped Garcia's main-draw run with a 6-2, 6-0 semifinal victory. Garcia was credited with a consolation victory over Ouachita Baptist's Ruxandra Tolescu by default.
Freshman
Lili Kovacs-Sebestyen competed in Flight C, falling 6-4, 6-1 to UT Tyler's Hailey Zhang in the quarterfinals before responding with a 7-5, 6-2 consolation victory over Ouachita Baptist's Jenny Pfaefflin.
Gabriela Franco added another Lady Chaparral singles victory in Flight E round-robin competition, defeating Ouachita Baptist's Clemence Mathijsen 6-3, 6-1.
Garcia and Kovacs-Sebestyen teamed together in Flight B doubles, where Mississippi Christian's Rune Van Wyk and Eva Zwyrtek earned an 8-5 quarterfinal victory. Their scheduled consolation match against Mississippi Christian's Lilly-Sophia Fule and Mariana Munoz went to the Mississippi Christian tandem by default.
LCU now turns its attention to the ITA Division II South Central Regional, scheduled for Oct. 22-25 at Summers Tennis Center in Tyler. The regional takes on added significance in 2026 with the launch of the new ITA Division II Singles & Doubles Championships. Both the men's and women's South Central Region tournaments are scheduled to be hosted by UT Tyler, and regional singles and doubles champions and finalists will earn automatic berths into the new Division II national individual championship.
The inaugural national championship is scheduled for Nov. 4-8 at the Tuscalossa Tennis Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The new championship replaces Division II's participation in the traditional ITA Cup and creates a standalone national singles and doubles championship for NCAA Division II players. The ITA has announced that each qualifier will be guaranteed at least three matches, with additional at-large berths joining the regional champions and finalists in the national fields. That regional will represent LCU's final opportunity of the fall to earn places in the inaugural Division II individual national championship.
