By Ben Dickison, Back Page Editor

“We’re part of something bigger than we ever thought possible,” junior Xavier tennis standout Abby Nugent said as she Nugent and her doubles partner, first-year Clara Owen, reminisced on their unlikely journey to the first fall rendition of the NCAA Women’s Singles and Doubles Championships in Waco, Texas. on the campus of Baylor University. Today, the duo will represent Xavier Tennis in its fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. 

Every Division I coach sends their best doubles team and best individual player to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Masters Tournament to compete for an automatic bid to the Doubles NCAA Individual Championships.“We never expected to play as well as we did,” Nugent said. 

At the Masters Tournament, held this year in Rome, Ga., the pair defeated Fordham’s Kolarevic and Ngyuen in the opening round, toppled East Tennessee State’s Rivera and Caceres in three sets and defeated South Carolina State’s Chursina and Semlali in the quarterfinal. This set up a matchup against Vanderbilt’s Celia Belle Mohr and Sophia Webster, who started the season as the 29th ranked doubles team in Division I, according to the ITA. The stakes: an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, 

Nugent and Owen recalled going into the match with a serene and prepared state of mind. 

“When we play against ranked teams, we remind ourselves all of the pressure is on our opponent. Teams don’t like to play us because we’re so unconventional,” Nugent said.

Against Vanderbilt, Nugent and Owen dropped the first set 2-6 before flipping the second set, winning 6-2. “We do deserve to be here,” Nugent said to Owen. 

They went on to win the third set by a 10-4 count and clinched their bid to the NCAA Tournament, despite dropping their ITA Masters final against Appalachian State’s Dada-Mascoll and Romanichen. 

On Saturday, the NCAA revealed the brackets for this week’s championship competition. Nugent and Owen will face off against North Carolina’s Tanguilig and Maltby, who are ranked 26th in the ITA rankings.

The pair both hail from the Dayton area and grew up playing in the same club, but never as doubles partners. While Owen praises Nugent as a trusted mentor and one of the reasons she is continuing her tennis career at Xavier, the two are starkly contrasted in many ways. Owen describes herself as a great volley player while Nugent says she is better at covering the baseline. Nugent describes herself as not very social before matches, while Owen likes to socialize as much as possible and leave the stress about the upcoming match at the door until she steps on the court.

While Nugent and Owen believe their best tennis is ahead of them, they credit their present success to the “competitive environment” and winning tradition cultivated by Xavier tennis alumni Imani Graham, Anna Roggenburk and Blessing Nwaozuzu, who led Xavier to four straight Big East team championships in the 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons. 

As Nugent and Owen prepare to serve up trouble for North Carolina, they hope to be celebrating a championship with their favorite victory meal, a Texas-sized burger from In-n-Out.