Tarleton State Tennis travels to Abilene for inaugural WAC Fall Tennis Invitational

ABILENE, Texas – Tarleton State Tennis' Emma Persson, Ximena Morales and Noelia Lorca will compete in the first annual WAC Fall Tennis Invitational starting Friday through Sunday at the John T.L. Jones Tennis Center.

The Texans' doubles team of Persson and Morales is the tournament's No. 1 seed and received a first-round bye. Persson and Lorca will compete in singles, with Persson obtaining the No. 3 seed and Lorca being listed as the No. 5 seed. The winner of the singles and doubles draws earn an automatic bid to the ITA Conference Masters Nov. 7-10 in Rome, Georgia.

"We are all going to go up there and do our best and give 100 percent and compete for the school and ourselves," Persson said. "We are going to do our best to win some good matches."

Persson is riding a wave of victories in both singles and doubles this fall, coming out victorious in the consolation final of the doubles draw at the ITA Texas Regional Championships with Lorca. In singles, Persson collected wins over opponents from SMU and North Texas in the main draw to advance to the Round of 16. This was the second time in the Swedish's career where she came up with at least two main draw wins at the ITA Texas Regional Championships.

She will play her first singles match at 3 p.m. Friday against either No. 6 seed Dania Deafi (GCU) or No. 11 seed Ana Gutierrez Sampre (Utah Tech).

In addition to winning the consolation doubles title at the ITA Texas Regional Championships, Lorca has bounced back from injury to compete in singles starting on Friday. Lorca will first face No. 12 seed Adela Latalova from UT Arlington at 9 a.m. Friday, with a win advancing her to the quarterfinals later in the afternoon. The Spaniard was named to the WAC Singles All-Conference Second Team and the conference's All-Tournament Team last year.

"I'm really grateful to the coaches that they picked me to play, so I honestly can't wait to play this weekend," Lorca said. "We'll see what happens."

Morales will compete in doubles with Persson for the first time this fall, with the duo earning the No. 1 seed in the doubles draw. The Guatemalan pulled together a string of doubles victories with teammate Maria Castano in ITA Texas Regional Championships to reach the consolation final against their fellow Tarleton State teammates.

"The (ITA Texas Regional Championships) helped me with my confidence in doubles," Morales said. "I've been also practicing a lot of doubles in practice, so I think that's been helping me a lot to gain confidence."

Play begins on Friday at 9 a.m., with live scoring available through Stat Broadcast.

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Players Mentioned

Ximena Morales: Sophomore

Emma Persson: Sophomore

Noelia Lorca: Junior

Maria Castano: Freshman

Players Mentioned

Ximena Morales
: Sophomore

Emma Persson
: Sophomore

Noelia Lorca
: Junior

Maria Castano
: Freshman