Ghilea, Papa Advance To Doubles Championship

STILLWATER, Okla. – The Oklahoma men's tennis team has racked up 14 wins in four days of main draw action at the 2016 ITA Regional Championships Presented by Oracle, but the Sooners' run in Stillwater is not over yet.

Sunday afternoon, senior Alex Ghilea and junior Spencer Papa took to the courts for their semifinals match in doubles against Francois Kellerman and Okkie Kellerman of Tulsa.

Ranked as the No. 22 doubles pair in the Oracle/ITA Preseason Rankings, Ghilea and Papa defeated the feisty Kellerman brothers in set one, 6-4. The back-and-forth second set came down to a tiebreak, but once again, Oklahoma's tandem channeled their energy and fought their way to a 7-6 (7) win to clinch a berth in Monday's championship match.

“Spencer and Alex came out very focused early in the match and got a break midway through the first set,” Oklahoma head coach Nick Crowell said. “They did a great job serving spots and making a lot of returns.”

In quarterfinals singles play, Ghilea fell to Minnesota's Matic Spec, 6-4, 0-6, 1-6. Papa was topped by Julian Cash of Oklahoma State, 1-6, 4-6. Oklahoma senior Florin Bragusi was defeated by Jose Salazar of Arkansas, 2-6, 5-7.

"These guys are hungry and are looking to get one more win tomorrow.”
- Head coach Nick Crowell

Times for Ghilea and Papa's championship match have not been announced, but the two will face the Sunday night's winner of Cash/Arjun Kadhe of Oklahoma State versus Arkansas' pairing of Salazar and Mike Redlicki.

Oklahoma's duo is looking to become the first pair of Sooners to win the doubles championship at the ITA Central Regional since Axel Alvarez and Guillermo Alcorta did so in 2012.

“We've talked a lot about doubles these past two weeks and worked very hard,” Crowell said. “Their chemistry is great and they played with a lot of emotion and energy this afternoon. These guys are hungry and are looking to get one more win tomorrow.”

The championship match will be live streamed on okstate.com/watchtennis. For more information on Oklahoma tennis, follow @OU_MTennis on twitter.