Three MMI Players Advance at the ITA Regional Tennis Tournament

Meridian, MS—Three MMI players—Isaiah Polk, Bridget Mayfield, and Makenzie Ralston—advanced in singles play on Wednesday afternoon at the Northeast Tennis Center. In all, eleven MMI players will participate in the 2016 ITA JUCO Southern Regional Championships, which began play on Wednesday afternoon and will conclude on Saturday with championship-round play. Other teams competing in the tournament on both the men's and women's sides include Copiah-Lincoln Community College, East Central Community College, Hinds Community College, Meridian Community College, and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Itawamba Community College brought its men's team only to the tournament.

Bridget Mayfield scored an easy 6-0, 6-1 win over East Central's Hannah Payne, and fellow teammate Makenzie Ralston replicated that score with her 6-0, 6-1 win over Mississippi Gulf Coast's Amberlee Miller.

In the marquee matchup on Day One, Isaiah Polk took on Tom Langelaar, East Central's No. 1 singles player. Polk got off to a slow start and lost the first set, 6-1. Polk, however, regained his footing in the second set and wound up winning that set, 6-4.

It boiled down to the super tiebreaker to decide the match, with the first person to ten points being declared the winner. Polk found himself down two match points at 9-7 but staved off both. On the first match point, Polk hustled around the court and fended off a number of solid Langelaar challenges. On the second match point, Polk put up a midcourt lob. Langelaar settled underneath it and decided to go for broke, striking it with all of his might. The ball smacked the top of the tape. With two match points thwarted, Polk went on to win the super tiebreaker and the match, 12-10. Polk won the match by the final score of 1-6, 6-4, 12-10.