Cantos Siemers, Allen/Boulais Selected for NCAA Championships
5/4/2021 6:40:46 PM | Women's Tennis
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The NCAA announced its selections for the 2021 NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships Tuesday, with Ohio State sophomore Irina Cantos Siemers an at-large selection in singles and the tandem of juniors Kolie Allen and Isabelle Boulais receiving the Big Ten’s automatic qualifier spot in the doubles draw.
The 64-player singles competition and 32-team doubles bracket will be held May 23-28 at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla. The individual championships follow the team championship, which will be May 16-22 at the USTA campus.
Cantos Siemers, 15th in the most recently released ITA singles ranking, was a unanimous First Team All-Big Ten selection. She is 18-5 overall this season and has a 15-5 ledger in dual matches, with a 10-5 mark on court one and 5-0 ledger on court two.
Allen and Boulais are 14-2 on the year, all on court one in dual play. The duo was ranked 50th last week in the ITA rankings. Boulais, now a two-time All-Big Ten honoree, participated in the NCAA singles championship as a freshman in 2019. She is the fifth Buckeye selected for both the singles and doubles championships in her career.
Automatic qualification into the Division I doubles championship is awarded to any conference with one or more eligible doubles teams ranked in the ITA Top 60 for eligible/entered doubles teams. For conferences with more than one doubles team within the ITA Top 60 eligible/entered doubles teams, the subcommittee applies the NCAA selection criteria to determine which doubles team is the automatic qualifier from those conferences. All doubles teams must have completed a minimum of four matches in order to be selected as an automatic qualifier or an at-large selection. All singles players must have played a minimum of six matches in order to be chosen in 2021.
The Buckeyes, who shared the Big Ten regular season co-championship and claimed the conference tournament title last weekend, are the No. 15 seed in the 64-team NCAA Championship and will host first and second round matches this weekend. In Columbus Friday, Vanderbilt and Ball State will meet at 11 a.m., with Ohio State taking on UIC at 2 p.m. The winners will meet at noon Saturday for a spot in the Round of 16. There are no tickets available for the general public. Live scoring and video will be available through OhioStateBuckeyes.com.
