ORLANDO, Fla. – After a historic fall season, App State senior Savannah Dada-Mascoll will make more history this week as the first Mountaineer to compete in the singles portion of the NCAA Division I Women's Tennis Championships.
Dada-Mascoll will begin play Tuesday at the USTA National Campus in Orlando as a No. 4 seed, taking on Naomi Xu from Cal in the first round at 1:30 p.m. The match can be streamed on ESPN+.
Dada-Mascoll is one of just eight players outside of a traditional Power Four league to land a spot in the 64-player draw, earning the highest seed out of that group.
She qualified for the NCAA Championships thanks to a memorable run at the ITA All-American Championships in October, when she took down five ranked opponents, including Auburn's Ashton Bennett, who had a No. 1 national ranking from the ITA at the time.
The Yorkshire, England, native carried the momentum on to the ITA Regionals, as she was crowned a co-champion of that event with a run to a final that wasn't contested. She defeated three more ranked opponents at that tournament, including No. 12 Theadora Rabman of North Carolina.
Held at the home for UCF's tennis teams, the NCAA Championships operate under a single-elimination format. Matches are best-of-three sets, and tiebreaker sets are played to 10 points.
The winner of Dada-Mascoll's match with Xu advances to the Round of 32, which will be played Wednesday. Awaiting in that round would be the winner of an opening-round matchup between players from Clemson and Florida.
