Auburn junior Ava Esposito won her opening-round match Tuesday at the NCAA Singles Championship at the USTA National Tennis Campus in Orlando, Florida. The round-of-64 victory over USC’s Keisha Mahendran advances Esposito to Wednesday’s second round.
Esposito battled back from a 5-2 deficit in the opening set, cutting it to 5-4 before ultimately dropping the set 6-4. The Auburn junior then dominated the second set, 6-2, to force a decisive third.
The two went back and forth in the final set, which led to a tiebreaker. Esposito won the tiebreak 7-3 to secure the match, which lasted two hours and 22 minutes.
On Tuesday evening, Auburn sophomore Ashton Bowers fell in a tight match to Washington’s Reece Carter, 6-4, 6-4, ending her tournament run.
Esposito will face Pepperdine’s Anastasiia Grechkina in the round of 32 on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. CT.
One round of the single-elimination draw will be played each day at the USTA National Campus, concluding with Sunday’s championship match. All players who reach the round of 16 automatically earn ITA Singles All-American honors.
All matches of the 2025-26 NCAA Singles Championship will stream live on ESPN+, and live scoring will be available throughout the event at NCAA.com.