Last season, the Iowa men’s tennis team missed the NCAA tournament by one spot. In 2019-20, the Hawkeyes have proven that they are one of the nation’s elite tennis programs.

Iowa competed in the ITA’s Regional Tennis Tournament last weekend. The outing in Norman, Oklahoma, was extremely telling in regard to the quality of this Hawkeye team.

The Hawkeyes immediately asserted their dominance on the tournament’s first day. Iowa went 5-2 on the day, posting a 3-0 record in singles play.

The Hawkeyes’ success continued the second day of play. Both of Iowa’s doubles pairs reigned victorious in the tournament’s Sweet Sixteen. Five of eight total Hawkeyes competing in the singles round of 64 also managed to advance.

“Clutch doubles play from both of our teams today to pull out tiebreakers,” Iowa head coach Ross Wilson said. “It was the best doubles I’ve seen from Nikita and Matt this season. I really liked the way Matt competed today. He was able to win two very close sets after losing the first set. He showed a lot of mental toughness to be down a set to come back and win, 7-5, 7-6.”

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On Saturday, it became evident that nothing was going to slow Iowa down.

Both Hawkeye doubles pairs qualified for the quarterfinals. In addition, two Hawkeyes navigated their way into the singles round of 16. Iowa’s Kareem Allaf even managed to move on to the singles round of eight.

“The competition will get a lot tougher for Kareem tomorrow,” Wilson said. “He will need everything in the tank for his matches on Sunday.”

Allaf did an admirable job on Sunday. He came up just shy of defending the championship title he won at last year’s ITA Regional Tournament. Allaf defeated Oklahoma’s Mark Mandlik in straight sets in the round of eight. Shortly after his victory, Allaf was dispatched in the semifinals by Kody Pearson of Tulsa.

“Kareem had a great tournament,” Wilson said. “I thought he played at a high level but ran into a tough match against his opponent from Tulsa.”

Iowa’s double tandems also had a strong showing. The duo of freshman Matt Clegg and junior Nikita Snezhko was extinguished in straight sets in the semifinals. However, the dyad of sophomore Oliver Okonkwo and junior Will Davies waltzed into the doubles championship.

Unfortunately for Davies and Okonkwo, Oklahoma State’s Luke Hammond and Emile Hudd came to play on Sunday. Hammond and Hudd handled Davies and Okonkwo in straight sets.

“Nice win in the semifinals for Will and Oliver coming back from a set down,” Wilson said. “They played at a high level to finish the match in the tiebreaker. Unfortunately, in the finals, they could not hold onto their 4-1 lead in the first set and the momentum changed and they were unable to recover.”

The Hawkeyes did not take home any championship hardware last weekend. Nonetheless, the Hawkeyes were impressive on all four days of tournament play, going 19-14 across 33 matches. The weekend will likely provide Iowa with a viable source of momentum going forward this fall.

“Hopefully our results are good enough from this past week to earn a couple at-large spots in singles and doubles at fall nationals in California,” Wilson said.

Iowa’s next chance to improve its résumé for fall nationals will come at the Big Ten Indoor Championships on Nov. 1.