PHILADELPHIA — Not only did senior Chris Vrabel win the singles competition at the USTA/ITA Northeast Regional Championships, no one even came close to beating him.
 
Vrabel capped a remarkable performance at the region's most prestigious fall tournament on Tuesday morning with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Penn's Josh Pompan on Tuesday at Hecht Tennis Center to earn an automatic berth into the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in early November. Vrabel didn't lose a set in any of his matches.
 
The Big Red has a history of sending competitors deep into the regional tournament, but Vrabel is Cornell's first singles champion since the ITA realigned into 12 regions leading in 2009. Since then, Andy Gauthier (2009), Venkat Iyer (2011), Sam Fleck (2013) and David Volfson (2015) have advanced as far as the semifinals, but Vrabel won a pair of matches on Monday to become the first to reach the finals.
 
Both players held serve until a pair of breaks tied the first set at 3-3. Vrabel then came back from down 0-30 on his own serve to take a 5-4 lead, then his second break of Pompan clinched the set.
 
Pompan's second break of the second set gave him a 3-2 lead, but Vrabel broke right back and had strung together dominating games on serve to bring the score back to 5-4 in the Big Red senior's favor. He then had two match points when Pompan's shot sailed wide, giving Vrabel the victory.
 
This will actually be Vrabel's second trip to the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, as he teamed up with Fleck to win the Northeast Region doubles title in 2013. This year's national event, hosted by Columbia, runs Nov. 3-6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.