The Cyclone tennis program is bound for the ITA Fall National Championships on Thursday after sweeping the recent ITA Fall Regionals tournament. And history will be made no matter the result.

The ITA National Championships are the final events of the fall season for the tennis team. The tournaments feature 64 (32 men and 32 women) of the nation’s top athletes in singles and doubles matches.

Iowa State head coach Boomer Saia feels confident that the Cyclones will come out with great intensity and fight to win over the weekend.

“We preach attitude, effort and competitiveness with our program… and we are going to give it our all,” Saia said.

The four Cyclones competing over the weekend are the first players in school history to qualify for the event. The two doubles teams are sophomores Miska Kadleckova and Sofia Cabezas, along with fellow sophomores Thasaporn Naklo and Christin Hsieh.

Iowa State will be joining North Carolina, Stanford and Colorado State as the only schools having two doubles teams competing.

Naklo will also be competing in the singles tournament after winning the ITA Regional Championships. She was the first Cyclone ever to win an ITA event at the Fall Regionals.

This year, Naklo has been playing the best tennis of her collegiate career.

She has only lost one match this season and is currently on a six-match winning streak. Naklo is 10-1 in singles play, and 10-3 in doubles play. Out of the four losses this season, three have come from ranked opponents, and her teammates Kadleckova and Cabezas dealt the last one in the ITA Regional doubles finals.

The duo of Kadleckova and Cabezas was also the first doubles team in school history to win an ITA championship. 

“I trust both doubles teams and Naklo. There is no doubt they will compete to win,” Saia said.

“This is a huge step for [the tennis program] and will help us build momentum going forward to the spring season.”

The ITA Fall Nationals begin on Thursday with the singles and doubles rounds of 32. The tournament continues on Friday with the singles round of 16 and quarterfinals for both the main and the consolation matches.

The doubles round of 16 main and consolation matches will also take place on Friday. The competition continues on Saturday with the singles semifinals for the main and the consolation matches. The doubles semifinals and quarterfinals matches will also take place on Saturday.

The ITA Fall Nationals conclude on Sunday with the finals matches for singles and doubles.