University of Minnesota Athletics
Baseline Hosting US Open Sectional Qualifier
6/17/2016 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
Tournament Central
The Baseline Tennis Center is hosting a US Open Sectional Qualifier with six current Gopher tennis players participating.
Sectional Qualifying Tournaments are held across 15 USTA Sections to include men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles.
The winner from each division advances to the US Open National Playoff Championships for a chance to compete at the US Open. The action will start on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. and go through Sunday or Monday if needed.
Men
Jesse Sprinkel will be the lone Gopher competing for the men this year taking part in men's singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles. He is teaming up with fellow Gopher Annemarie Emme in the mixed doubles.
Last year Felix Corwin won this event and competed in the US Open National Playoff Championships.
Justyn Levin is currently competing in a similar event back in Australia trying to qualify for the Brisbane Open.
Women
Five Gophers will be competing for the women. Caitlyn Merzbacher will be competing in the tournament for her second straight year.
Merzbacher is coming off an impressive showing at the Tennessee Valley Open Championships where she advanced to the semifinals in both singles and doubles. She beat Kenya Jones, Georgia Tech commit who is ranked No. 15 for incoming freshman in the country, in three sets to move past the quarterfinals in singles.
She will be competing in women's singles, women's doubles with teammate Mehvish Safdar and with her dad and coach Chuck Merzbacher in mixed doubles for the second year in a row.
Merzbacher and Safdar competed together at the No. 3 doubles spot for the Maroon and Gold this past season going 12-9 together.
Last year both Merzbachers competed in all three divisions but this year Coach Merzbacher will just be competing in the mixed doubles. The Merzbacher duo will be looking to improve upon their quarterfinal exit from last year, but more than anything they just love the opportunity to play together.
Safdar will also be competing in women's singles. She went 12-7 in her sophomore season for the Gophers.
Emme will be participating in all three divisions. She will be in the women's singles, mixed doubles with Sprinkel and women's doubles with All-Big Ten honoree Caroline Ryba. Coming off an impressive sophomore campaign Ryba, engineering major, is taking two summer classes and has lightened her summer tennis load a bit. She will only be competing in doubles at the tournament.
Ryba and Emme competed in just three doubles matches together in the Maroon and Gold but both hail from Glenbrook South High School where they were teammates for a number of years. Ryba went 18-12 in singles playing at the No. 1 spot and 14-10 in doubles mostly at the No. 3 spot while Emme went 17-20 in singles and played at No. 1 doubles going 16-21 on the year.
Rounding out the Gophers competing at the tournament is Maja Vujic who is participating in women's singles. The lone junior on the squad this past season went 10-6 and was named a Big Ten Sportsmanship honoree.
Players Mentioned
