SAINT PETER, Minn. – The No. 15 nationally ranked Gustavus Adolphus College women's tennis team hosted and competed in the 2026 ITA DIII Women's Midwest Regional Championships this weekend. In the final day of the tournament on Monday,
Karina Elvestrom and
Rory Wahlstrand battled each other for the singles title.
The two Gusties, who just the night prior had won the regional doubles title as a duo, battled neck and neck against each other in the opening set as the first year Wahlstrand gave her all against the junior Elvestrom, who was the two-time defending Midwest Regional Singles Champion. The first set reached six games all and went to a tiebreaker. Elvestrom won the breaker 10-4 to take the first set 7-6.
In the second set, Elvestrom jumped out to an early lead but Wahlstrand started to rally to hang in the fight. The Gustavus junior went on to take the set 6-4 to secure her third ITA DIII Women's Midwest Regional Singles Championship in as many years.
With the win, Elvestrom has earned ITA Singles All-American honors for the 2026-27 season. The Gustie junior has now earned both singles and doubles All-American recognition in each of her three years.
Gustavus made an impressive showing at the ITA Regional this year as three of the final four semifinalists in both the singles and doubles draws were earned by Gusties.
As the finalists for the singles championship, both Elvestrom and Wahlstrand will advance to compete in the national ITA Cup, which runs October 15-18.
Up next for Gustavus is the two-day UW-Whitewater Invite which begins on Friday, October 9.
"It was an incredible weekend for the Gusties," said Gustavus head coach
Jon Carlson. "It's one of the best ITA Tournaments we've ever had in all my years of coaching, to have three of the top four singles players in the semis and to have four of the top eight and then three of the top four doubles teams really speaks to the hard work the girls have put in this fall. Maybe even more impressive was the dominance of the women's team in the fall invite: we had four singles champions, a singles finalist, and two doubles champions. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend as a coach. I'm very proud of the girls and very happy for their success."
