TULSA, Okla. – California men's tennis graduate student Theo Dean upset the nation's top-ranked singles player to win his opener at the ITA All-American Championships on Wednesday and join the Golden Bear doubles team of Mikey Wright and Alex Chang in Thursday's second rounds.
 
Dean, who's ranked 44th in singles, defeated Michigan State's Ozan Baris – who's also the top seed in Tulsa –  6-2, 2-6, 6-1 in the round of 64 in the singles main draw. He is the second Bear to beat Baris this month, as Carl Emil Overbeck bested the Spartan 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 in the singles quarterfinals of the Battle in the Bay Classic on Sept. 13 in San Francisco. Dean will next meet TCU's 39th-ranked Lui Maxted on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. PT in the round of 32. That sets up a rematch of their Battle in the Bay Classic quarterfinal, in which Dean fell to the Horned Frog in three sets.
 
Chang and Wright, ranked 13th, beat Texas Tech's seventh-ranked Piotr Pawlak and Sebastian Abboud in the opening round of 32 in main draw doubles in Tulsa. They'll take on Vanderbilt's 86th-ranked Henry Ruger and Hugo Coquelin in the round of 16 on Thursday at 3 p.m. PT.
 
In Overbeck's first-round match in the singles main draw, the 56th-ranked senior lost to Wake Forest's 26th-ranked Dhakshineswar Suresh 6-3, 7-5. He moves to the consolation draw to face Baylor's 61st-ranked Devin Badenhorst on Thursday at 10 a.m. PT.
 
In their round of 32 doubles match, the 25th-ranked Overbeck and Dean fell in a close battle to Baylor's Oskar Brostrom Poulsen and Marko Miladinovic 7-5, 5-7, 10-6. The Bears next play Ohio State's 19th-ranked Aidan Kim and Alexander Bernard on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. PT in the consolation bracket.
 
The Bears seek to qualify for the NCAA individual championships in November through their performances at the ITA All-American Championships. The eight singles quarterfinalists from the main draw plus the two consolation singles finalists advance to the NCAA Singles Championship, while the four doubles semifinalists from the main draw in Tulsa advance to the NCAA Doubles Championship.

ITA All-American Championships – Cal Results
Sept. 25, 2024, in Tulsa, Okla.
Case Tennis Center
 
Main Draw Singles Round of 64
No. 44 Theo Dean (Cal) def. [1] No. 1 Ozan Baris (MSU), 6-2, 2-6, 6-1
No. 26 Dhakshineswar Suresh (Wake Forest) def. No. 56 Carl Emil Overbeck (Cal), 6-3, 7-5
 
Main Draw Doubles Round of 32
No. 13 Alex Chang/Mikey Wright (Cal) def. [6] No. 7 Piotr Pawlak/Sebastian Abboud (Texas Tech), 3-6, 7-6(5), 10-8
Oskar Brostrom Poulsen/Marko Miladinovic (Baylor) def. No. 25 Theo Dean/Carl Emil Overbeck (Cal), 7-5, 5-7, 10-6
 
Stay Posted
For further coverage of the Bears, follow them on X (@CalMensTennis), Instagram (@CalMensTennis) and Facebook (/CalMensTennis/).