Alla Advances to USTA/ITA National Small College Semifinal

(FT. MYERS, Fla.) - Sophomore Abhishek Alla (Hyderabad, India/IMG Pendleton School) of the Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team began play at the USTA/ITA National Small College Championships on Thursday morning upsetting No. 4 seed Paxton Deuel of Trinity (Texas) University 7-5, 6-3. Alla advances to the national semifinal which will be played Friday morning.

Alla opened the match down 0-1 as Deuel held serve but then went up 2-1 before Deuel came back to take a 3-2 lead. Alla would later find himself down 5-4 and serving. The sophomore held his serve then broke Deuel to take a 6-5 lead and held serve again for the first set win, 7-5.

Deuel started the second set serving and got off to a 3-0 start before Alla regrouped and won the final six games to take the set 6-3 and win the match.

Alla advances to the national semifinal and will face Kenyon sophomore Sam Geier who upset Emory University's Eric Halpern, seeded No. 1, in the quarterfinals.

Alla's and Geier's match will begin Friday at 9:30 a.m. Follow @cmutennis on Twitter for live scoring updates.