3 Bears Qualify For NCAAs At ITA Regionals
Greta Greco Lucchina (left) and Mao Mushika (right) won the regional doubles title to qualify for the NCAA Doubles Championship.
BERKELEY – Three members of the California women’s tennis team qualified for the NCAA individual championships as the ITA Northwest Regional Championships wound almost to a close Tuesday at the Hellman Tennis Complex. Mao Mushika and Greta Greco Lucchina won the regional doubles title to punch their tickets to the NCAA Doubles Championship, while earlier in the day Naomi Xu defeated Mushika in a singles semifinal to earn her berth at the NCAA Singles Championship.
singles for the first time.
The fifth-seeded tandem of Greco Lucchina and Mushika defeated Washington State’s second-seeded and 58th-ranked Eva Alvarez Sande and Maxine Murphy 4-6, 6-1, 1-0(10) to capture the doubles crown and their postseason trip to Orlando, Florida, which will host the NCAA singles and doubles tournaments from Nov. 18-23.
This marks the third trip to NCAA doubles with a different partner for Mushika, a junior who reached the postseason two years ago with Hannah Viller Moeller and advanced to NCAAs with Jessica Alsola last season, when she also competed in NCAA singles.
“There’s a lot to work on still and I don’t think we played perfect doubles, but her energy got us this win,” Mushika said of her latest doubles partner. “Greta had great energy and she was willing to do anything to win.”
It was a busy slate for Mushika, who battled Xu over three sets in the singles semifinals to start the day. The unseeded Xu beat the top-seeded and 17th-ranked Mushika 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to claim a spot in the final later in the day and qualify for NCAAs.
Xu’s loss to Stanford’s fifth-seeded Alyssa Ahn 6-0, 6-1 in the final could not erase the Cal sophomore’s impressive run at regionals. Besides her win over Mushika, Xu defeated Stanford’s third-ranked and fourth-seeded Monika Ekstrand in the round of 32, WSU’s ninth-seeded Murphy in the round of 16, and Washington’s sixth-seeded Erika Matsuda in the quarterfinals.
Tournament officials will schedule a third-place singles match between Mushika and Cal senior Berta Passola Folch – who fell to Ahn in the semifinals – at a date to be determined.
The Bears are next in action when they compete in the Jack Kramer Invitational from Oct. 31-Nov. 2 at the Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates.
ITA Northwest Regional Championships
Oct. 14, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif.
Hellman Tennis Complex
Main Draw Doubles – Final
[5] Mao Mushika/Greta Greco Lucchina (Cal) def. [2] No. 58 Eva Alvarez Sande/Maxine Murphy (WSU), 4-6, 6-1, 1-0(10)
Main Draw Singles – Semifinal Round
Naomi Xu (Cal) def. [1] No. 17 Mao Mushika (Cal), 6-3, 4-6, 6-3
Main Draw Singles – Final
[5] Alyssa Ahn (Stanford) def. Naomi Xu (Cal), 6-0, 6-1
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