Ten members of the Saint John's tennis team travel to St. Peter for the 2026 ITA Midwest Regional Championships this Friday-Monday, Oct. 2-5. – Regional Website

BRACKET BREAKDOWN: This weekend's competition will be split between the ITA Midwest Regional Championships and the coinciding Midwest Open. 

Singles
-ITA: Freshman Anthony Perrill (Orono, Minn.) and senior Sam Wolden (St. Louis Park, Minn.).
-Midwest Open: Freshman Lincoln Dille (Litchfield, Minn./Laurel Spring School, Pa.), junior Andrew Eckmann (Eagan, Minn./Two Rivers), sophomore Jack Gangl (Elk River, Minn.), freshman Djordje Sopko (Novi Bećej, Serbia/Gimnazija Bećej), sophomore Nam Tran (Eden Prairie, Minn./Shakopee), freshman Eli Woidyla (Brandon, S.D./Brandon Valley).

Doubles
-ITA: Wolden/Perrill, Tran/Woidyla
-Midwest Open: Eckmann/Gangl, freshman Zach Hughes (Elk River, Minn.)/Sopko and Dille/sophomore Joey Schleper (Shakopee, Minn.)

THE FORMAT: In ITA Singles, rounds 1-2 (Friday) and 3-4 (Saturday) will play 10-point tie-breakers for the third set. On Sunday and Monday, all ITA Singles matches will be full third sets. For the Midwest Open, all singles matches will be 2 out of 3 sets with a 10-point tie-breaker for the third set. 

For doubles, all matches will be 8-game pro-sets with tie-breakers at 7-7 until the finals of both the ITA and the Midwest Open. The finals of both doubles tournaments will be 2 out of 3 sets with a 10-point tiebreaker for the third set.

LOCATIONS: All match locations are listed on the draws for each match. 

Weather permitting, the tournament will be hosted primarily on the Gustavus Adolphus campus. Matches will take place at the Wilkinson Tennis Complex, which includes six indoor courts in the Swanson Tennis Center, eight outdoor at the Brown Tennis Courts and four outdoor at the adjacent Helgeson Courts. Additional sites include St. Peter High School, Mankato East High School, Prairie Winds Middle School, Dakota Meadows Middle School, Bethany Lutheran College and Alexander Park, 

Should the weather force competition indoors, matches will be played at the six courts at the Swanson Tennis Center in the Wilkinson Tennis Complex and the Owatonna Indoor Tennis courts.

LAST SPRING: Saint John's finished eighth in the MIAC with a 1-8 record (2-12 overall) in 2026. Senior Alex Draeger (Litchfield, Minn.) and junior Cole Haabala (Alexandria, Minn.) combined to earn All-MIAC honors in doubles last spring with a record of 5-8 (4-5) at No. 1.

WHO WILL BE THERE: In addition to the Johnnies and host Gusties, other schools scheduled to have student-athletes competing this weekend include Bethany Lutheran, Bethel, Carthage (Wis.), Carleton, Carroll (Wis.), Central (Iowa), Coe (Iowa), Concordia-Moorhead, Concordia (Wis.), Cornell (Iowa), Crown, Edgewood (Wis.), Grinnell (Iowa), Loras (Iowa), Luther (Iowa), Macalester, Milwaukee School of Engineering (Wis.), Northwestern (Minn.), Saint Mary's, St. Olaf, St. Scholastica, Wartburg (Iowa), Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Wisconsin-La Crosse, Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Wisconsin-Superior and Wisconsin-Whitewater.

LAST FALL's TOURNAMENTS: Six Johnnies competed at last year's (Sept. 26-27, 2025) ITA Midwest Regional and Midwest Open in Mankato and St. Peter. Draeger and Taylor Duncan '26 represented SJU in the singles competition of the ITA Midwest tournament, falling in straight sets. Draeger battled Wisconsin-Stevens Point's Dawson Froemming to a 6-3 and 6-4 loss, while Duncan fell 6-4 and 6-0 to Mateo Torre of St. Scholastica. Tran advanced to the Midwest Open G semifinals, winning his first collegiate singles match by two scores of 6-4 over Dubuque's Tanner Laube. He defeated Wartburg's Kellen Jones 6-4 and 6-1 on Saturday and won set one of his next match 6-4 over Loras' Hayden Martin, but dropped set two 7-6 and the tiebreaker 10-6 to the eventual bracket champion.  

Draeger and Tran won their first-round match of ITA doubles, 8-5, over Bethel's Zack Chaffey and Watson Sheard. The tandem dropped their second-round bout to Jack Hehll and Ty Schneider of Wisconsin-La Crosse, seeded ninth in the tournament.

Gangl won his first singles draw 6-1 and 6-1 but fell in the next round to Macalester's Ezra Mahoney, 6-2 and 6-0. Eckmann and freshman Henry Raiche (Maple Plain, Minn./Orono) each fell in their first round of Midwest Open singles.