By Sally Milano, USTA.com
Women's top seed and defending champion Francesca Di Lorenzo of Ohio State and men’s No. 7 Michael Redlicki of Arkansas were the big winners Sunday at the 2016 USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships. Di Lorenzo defeated No. 4 seed Hayley Carter of North Carolina to capture the women’s title, and Redlicki stunned top seed Mikael Torpegaard of Ohio State to claim the men’s crown.
The National Indoors took place Nov. 3-6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y., home of the US Open, and marked the culmination of the fall collegiate season.
Di Lorenzo successfully defended the National Indoors title she won in 2015 by defeating Carter, 6-1, 6-1, in the final. The win capped off a perfect fall season for the sophomore, as she also won the 2016 Riviera/ITA All-American Championships last month.
“It feels great, and I’m not going to lie, it’s a little bit of a relief,” Di Lorenzo told ITATennis.com following her win. “Coming into this tournament, I did feel some pressure, doing well last year. Coming here and being successful like I was last year is definitely exciting, and I’m happy to be able to represent Ohio State here and do well and bring home a title for the university.”
In the men’s final, Redlicki upset Torpegaard, 6-4, 6-3, to become the first Razorback since 1986 to win a National Indoors title. The big-serving, 6-foot-8 Redlicki, a redshirt senior, won 75 percent of his first-serve points and blasted eight aces in Sunday’s final.
“(Torpegaard) is No. 1 in college tennis for a reason,” Redlicki told the ITA after his win. “He just won an indoor Challenger, and that’s not easy to do, let alone for a college tennis player. He’s the pinnacle of college tennis and as good as it gets, and I was lucky to bring my ‘A’ game and match up with him."
With their wins, Di Lorenzo and Redlicki each earned wild cards to compete in a future USTA Pro Circuit tournament and a place on the 2017 USTA Collegiate National Team.
In the doubles finals, Kentucky’s Mami Adachi and Aldila Sutjiadi defeated UCLA’s Ena Shibahara and Jada Hart, 6-3, 6-4, to win the women’s title, while Wake Forest’s Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim notched a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Valparaiso’s Jeffrey Schorsch and Charlie Emhardt to capture the men’s championship.