University of Minnesota Athletics
Women's Tennis: Fall Recap
11/15/2010 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
The University of Minnesota women's tennis team wrapped up a successful fall season a little more than a week ago at the Kitty Harrison Invite in Chapel Hill, N.C. Coach Tyler Thomson saw improvement from his returning players and promise from the incoming freshmen throughout the fall.
The season, which consisted of six tournaments in five different states for the Gophers, had many notable highlights. At the Wildcat Invitational in Evanston, Ill., doubles duos Alessandra Ferrazzi and Alexa Palen and Magdalena Wiecha and Natallia Pintusava won their respective flights. Two weeks later, Pintusava went on a magnificent run to reach the ITA Regional singles final.
"We played a very full schedule and played a lot of great tournaments with a lot of good competition," said Thomson. "We've got some great new freshmen and we had some really good improvement with some of our returning players."
The season began in Iowa, where seniors Mariana Spilca and Peta Forsyth represented Minnesota along with freshmen Elianna Kantar and Emilie Renault at the Drake Invitational.
Forsyth had the most success in singles play, advancing to the consolation final, where she lost to Laia Gonzalez of Northern Iowa. Kantar and Renault earned their first career wins before bowing out in the second round. In doubles play, Spilca and Renault teamed up to win the consolation draw after losing in the first round of the top flight.
After a weekend off, the Gopher women continued play the week of Sept. 24-26. Ferrazzi, Palen, Wiecha, and Pintusava traveled to Berkeley, Calif. to participate in the Cal/Nike Invitational, while Spilca, Kantar, Forsyth, and Renault played at the UNI Fall Invitational in Waterloo, Iowa.
In California, Wiecha went the furthest of all the Minnesota women by winning her first three singles matches against opponents from Sacramento State, Long Beach State and Santa Clara University in straight sets, before losing to by LBSU's Deborah Armstrong in the semifinals. Wiecha and her doubles partner, Pintusava, advanced to the final of the consolation draw by downing teams from St. Mary's and Fresno State.
Meanwhile, at the UNI Invitational, Forsyth took down Drake's Jessica Aguilera, Missouri's Mahdi Besovic and Northern Iowa's Krissy Lankelma to reach the Silver flight final. Forsyth and Kantar won three singles matches apiece, while Spilca and Renault each won one of two singles matches.
The Gophers returned to play two weeks later at Northwestern's Wildcat Invitational, where they took home two doubles crowns.
In the top flight, Ferrazzi and Palen won three close matches to claim the championship. In the quarterfinals, they defeated Miljana Jocic and Dijana Stojic of South Carolina, 8-6. To get to the final against Oklahoma's Alice Radu and Tara Eckel, Ferazzi and Palen needed to advance past 31st-ranked doubles pair Selma Salkovic and Gia McKnight of DePaul. They beat Salkovic and McKnight 9-8 before winning the title with a tight, 9-8 (4) win over Radu and Eckel.
Wiecha and Pintusava's run to the second-flight title was less dramatic than Ferrazzi and Palen's, but it was still no easy feat. They advanced to the final with 8-6 victories over pairs from DePaul and LSU before claiming the title by conquering Big Ten foes Lynne Poggensee-Wei and Christina Harazin of Iowa, 8-5.
Twelve days after the Gophers completed their most successful weekend of the fall in doubles play, the freshman Pintusava would begin an epic run of her own in singles play at the ITA Regionals in Fayetteville, Ark.
The 18-year-old from Belarus started the weekend by making quick work of Kansas State's Karla Bonacic, Tulsa's JoAnne Karaitiana, and Nebraska's Stefanie Weinstein, eliminating each opponent in straight sets. After getting past the round of 16, Pintusava would face three consecutive top-40 singles players.
In the quarterfinals, Pintusava dropped the first set to No. 37 Sonja Molnar of Iowa, 6-2, before storming back to take the last two sets 6-1 and 6-2. In the next round, she took down 36th-ranked Lutfiana Budiharto of Wichita State, 7-6 (4), 6-4, to advance to the final. There, she met the top seed in the tournament and the 18th-ranked singles player in the nation, Anouk Tigu of Arkansas, and lost in a three-set thriller.
"She had great credentials coming in and she's actually playing at a level higher than I anticipated," said Thomson of Pintusava. "She does a lot of great things on the court strategically and offensively. She's also very open to learning, she's eager to learn new things, and I think she's only going to get better while she's here."
The Gophers finished fall play at the Kitty Harrison Invitational, where they were tested against a plethora of ranked opponents. Sophomore Doron Muravnik saw her first action of 2010-11 at the Chapel Hill tournament.
She lost her lone singles match, but went 1-1 with Spilca in doubles play. The duo lost to the 25th-ranked pairing of Marjorie Baker and Caryssa Peretz of Virginia, but rebounded by gaining a decisive, 8-1 victory over Annette Rios and Devon Sutherland of North Carolina-Greensboro.
"[We need to continue to work on] our collection as a team," said Thomson. "In this last tournament we were able to do some things as a team and we became more collective as a team and I think that's going to be a big piece of how far this team advances."
With the off-season now upon them, the Gophers will practice twice a week and work on off-court conditioning until they return to action and begin the dual-match season on Jan. 21, 2011, in Huntington, W.Va., against Marshall. Their first home match is slated for Feb. 11 versus Oklahoma at the Baseline Tennis Center.
Players Mentioned
