University of Minnesota Athletics
Baseline to Host Gopher Invite
9/21/2016 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
The Golden Gophers women's tennis team is preparing for the annual Gopher Invitational this weekend at the Baseline Tennis Center. The tournament will take place Sept. 22 - Sept. 25.
"The Gopher Invitational is a tradition that our program really looks forward to," Head coach Chuck Merzbacher said. "We have 13 schools participating from all over the nation. This is a chance for us to see our young players play, look at some new doubles combinations, and see where we are at competitively. Our veterans, cherish the Gopher Invite as they get a chance to play at home and lead this team in front of our home tennis fans."
Tournament Format
The format of the tournament will be six 16-player singles flights with two rounds on Friday, one round on Saturday and one round on Sunday. Scoring will be best-out-of three, no-ad scoring with a match tiebreaker if the sets are split.
There will be a daily four team doubles draw starting on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. The scoring for doubles will be one set, no-ad scoring with a tiebreaker at 6-6.
Participants
The 12 schools that will be traveling to Minneapolis to compete at Baseline this weekend are Eastern Michigan, Iowa, Iowa State, Marquette, North Dakota, Northern Iowa, San Jose State, South Dakota State, South Dakota, UN-Omaha, UW-Milwaukee and Wisconsin.
Minnesota will have nine student-athletes competing in the tournament. Junior Caroline Ryba was named All-Big Ten a season ago and is coming off an 18-12 singles record and a 14-10 doubles record. Fellow junior Mehvish Safdar finished with a 12-7 singles record and a 16-16 doubles record.
Senior captain Maja Vujic will also be competing. Vujic finished last season with a 10-6 singles record and a 5-3 doubles record. Sophomore Camila Vargas Gomez recorded a 17-14 singles record while posting a 9-4 record in doubles. Rounding out the returning Gophers that will compete in the Gopher Invite is Annemarie Emme. The sophomore had a 17-20 singles record and a 16-21 doubles record last season.
Gopher Invite 2015
Last season the Gophers finished the Gopher Invite with an impressive 23-9 record in singles and picked up six doubles draw victories. Mehvish Safdar was 6-0 in doubles and placed sixth in the top flight. Senior Maja Vujic finished in seventh place while sophomore Camila Vargas Gomez finished in 11th in the top flight.
New Additions
The maroon and gold will be adding four freshman and one transfer this year. Barbara Mancera, a native of Mexico City, Mexico, is coming to Minnesota from North Carolina State where she was 8-9 in singles. Karyna Bihel comes from Grayslake, Ill., Cammy Frei hails from Winnetka, Ill., Kalyssa Hall travels from Colorado Springs, Colo. and Tina Kreinis crosses the northern border from Toronto, Ont. All the incoming freshmen will be competing this weekend.
Another new face to the Gophers' family is assistant coach Nick Kavelaris. Kavelaris has spent the last three seasons as the assistant coach at Marquette University.
How to Follow
You can follow the Gophers as they compete at the Gopher Invite on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
This year the Gopher Invite will feature online live streams of each indoor court at Baseline. Check out the link to each court below:
Court 1: http://z.umn.edu/wtc1
Court 2: http://z.umn.edu/wtc2
Court 3: http://z.umn.edu/wtc3
Court 4: http://z.umn.edu/wtc4
Court 5: http://z.umn.edu/wtc5
Court 6: http://z.umn.edu/wtc6
Players Mentioned
