GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Kourtney Keegan, Sofie Oyen and Stefanie Stojic each won both their doubles match and a singles match to help Florida win its 30th consecutive season opener with a 4-0 victory against No. 70 Louisville on Saturday at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex. The match was part of the first round of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend.
Louisville won the first doubles match, but the tandems of Keegan and Oyen along with Alexandra Cercone and Stojic took the final two doubles matches to win the doubles point for the Gators.
In singles competition, Florida won three of its matches in straight sets to seal its first dual match victory of the season. Keegan finished her match first, defeating Louisville’s Elle Stokes, 6-0, 6-3, and pushing Florida to a 2-0 advantage.
Oyen took the third point of the match after beating Rebecca Bodine, 6-1, 6-2, on court four. Stojic defeated Olivia Boesing 6-4, 6-1, just before Cercone could finish her match. Cercone, who played the No. 1 spot for the first time in her career as a Gator, was in the middle of a tiebreak that would have decided the outcome of her match when Stojic won her single match and sealed the win for Flori
No. 3 North Carolina 4, No. 62 Denver
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina cruised to a 4-0 win against Denver on Saturday during the opening round of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend.
Carolina (3-0) earned a pair of 6-0 victories to win the doubles point in a little more than 20 minutes of work.
Tenth-ranked Caroline Price and Whitney Kay were the first to finish. Minutes later, No. 12 Hayley Carter and Jamie Loeb wrapped up their match for the always important doubles point.
In singles play, Carolina got 6-0, 6-0 wins from Loeb at No. 1 and Price at No. 5.
Kay ended the match by winning at No. 3 singles, 6-2, 6-1.
No. 6 Southern California 4, No. 37 Saint Mary's (Calif.) 0
LOS ANGELES -- Southern California stamped its ticket to the ITA National Indoor Championships with a 4-0 sweep of Saint Mary's (Calif.) in the final round of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend.
A strong showing in doubles helped the Women of Troy get off to a good start. Juniors Zoë Scandalis and Giuliana Olmos, the No. 7 doubles team in the nation, blasted a number of powerful returns at their opponents, earning them a 6-0 win against Danielle Flores and Jamie Powid.
At the top doubles spot, junior Sabrina Santamaria and senior Kaitlyn Christian, ranked No. 33 in the nation together, used perfectly placed lobs to defeat the Gaels' Jenny Jullien and Parminder Kaur 6-3 to secure the doubles point.
Despite excelling in doubles, Santamaria struggled out of the gate in singles play. Santamaria, ranked No. 13 nationally in singles, dropped the first set to the Gaels' Jullien, ranked No. 7 nationally, but her teammates would step up to guarantee their team a victory.
No. 60 Olmos dominated Kaur on court thre, 6-0, 6-1, while No. 80 Gabriella DeSimone handled Flores 6-4, 6-0 on court four.
With Santamaria and Scandalis dropping their first sets, freshman Zoë Katz came to the rescue, notching a 6-3, 6-1 win versus the Gaels' Jade Frampton to clinch the victory for the Women of Troy.
No. 7 Texas A&M 4, Mississippi State 1
COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Texas A&M opened its 2014 dual season with a 4-1 victory against Mississippi State in the first round of the ITA Kick-Off Classic at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
With the win, the Aggies advance to take on DePaul (1-0), Sunday in the championship match, with the winner earning a berth in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships on Feb. 7-10 in Charlottesville, Va.
Aggie freshman Rutuja Bhosale and sophomore Ines Deheza gave A&M the early edge in doubles, jumping out to a 3-0 lead en route to a 6-3 victory against the Bulldogs’ Georgiana Patrasc and Naomi Tran at the No. 2 line. A&M then clinched the point as the 22nd-ranked Romanian duo of Stefania Hristov and Cristina Stancu overcame an early 3-1 deficit to defeat Timea Guiba and Alexandra Perper 7-5 at No. 1 doubles.
Hristov quickly gave A&M a 2-0 lead after the start of singles, winning 10 consecutive games to close out a 6-2, 6-0 victory against Calderone at the No. 5 line.
Stancu, the lone senior on the Aggie squad, began her match by winning the first 10 games against Romanian countrywoman and 84th-ranked Patrasc at the No. 1 line. Stancu went on to defeat Patrasc 6-0, 6-2 to put A&M ahead 3-0.
Roseline Dion put the Bulldogs on the scoreboard and avoided the shutout with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Bhosale at the No. 5 court before Saska Gavrilovska clinched the winning point for A&M, defeating Guiba 6-3, 6-0 at No. 3.
The remaining two matches were tightly contested but were stopped once A&M clinched the team victory.
No. 8 California 4, No. 43 Washington 0
BERKELEY, Cal. -- California needed roughly two hours to defeat Washington 4-0 in the finale of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend on Saturday and advance to the ITA National Women’s Team Indoor Championships. Freshman and 31st-ranked Maegan Manasse clinched the team victory with a 6-0, 6-2 singles win against the Huskies’ Natalie Coronel on court six at the Hellman Tennis Complex.
The Bears quickly captured the doubles point. The pair of sophomores Lynn Chi and Klara Fabikova topped Washington’s Andjela Nemcevic/Julija Lukac on court three and the 48th-ranked team of Denise Starr and Zsofi Susanyi defeated Natalie Coronel/Grace Ysidora on court two by identical 6-3 scores.
Cal’s depth and talented young players were on full display in singles. Starr, ranked No. 15 in singles, raced out to a 6-0, 6-0 victory versus Ysidora on court two to give Cal a 2-0 lead in the overall match. Fabikova, a second-year Bear, followed with a 6-0, 6-0 win against Riko Shimizu on court five, before Manasse wrapped up the match with her win on court six.
No. 9 Miami (Fla.) 4, No. 75 LSU 0
CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- Miami (Fla.) punched its ticket to the ITA National Team Indoor Championships with a 4-0 sweep against LSU on Saturday to win the Coral Gables portion of the ITA Kickoff Weekend.
The Hurricanes won the doubles point with wins from Kelsey Laurente and Melissa Bolivar and a tiebreaking thriller that saw the 29th-ranked duo of Monique Albuquerque and Clementina Riobueno come out victorious.
Fresh off the intense doubles win, Albuquerque wasted no time getting out to a comfortable 3-0 lead against LSU’s Abigail Owens. Owens did battle back to win three games, but Albuquerque cruised to a 6-3 set win. In the second set it was much of the same with Albuquerque notching another 6-3 win.
With two wins down and two to go, the Hurricanes led in all remaining singles matches and at that point became a race to the finish line.
Laurente, ranked 64th, was the next to clinch her victory, winning in straight sets 6-2, 6-3 against LSU’s Noel Scott.
Just a few moments later, Bolivar clinched her match in a very similar fashion. Playing against LSU’s SkylarHolloway, who she had faced earlier in her doubles match, Bolivar bolted to a 6-3, 6-1 win to solidify Miami’s spot in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.
No. 10 Duke 4, No. 42 Kentucky 0
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke continued its strong play on Saturday evening in the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center as the Blue Devils registered a 4-0 blanking of Kentucky in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend.
In doubles action, the Blue Devils started strong on court one as Duke’s Beatrice Capra and Hanna Mar took a 3-0 advantage before 56th-ranked CeCe Witten and Kelsey Dieters of Kentucky stormed back to cut the Duke lead to 3-2. Capra and Mar went on to win three consecutive games to take the first set 6-2.
On court three, Kentucky’s Kirsten Lewis and Stephanie Fox opened the match with a 2-0 lead against Duke’s Marianne Jodoin and Alyssa Smith. The Blue Devil tandem came back to win four consecutive points to take a 4-2 advantage. Duke went on to claim the 6-4 win and notched the doubles point for the Blue Devils. Jodoin and Smith improved to 7-1 on the season paired together.
Jodoin, who is a product of Varennes, Quebec, cruised to a 6-0 win in the first set against Taylor Lederman. In the second set, Lederman jumped out to a 4-1 lead, but Jodoin bounced back to even the score a 4-4. Lederman won the next point to take a 5-4 lead, but Jodoin broke Lederman to even the ledger at 5-5 and went on to win the next two points to give Duke a 2-0 lead in the match.
A rookie out of Laguna Niguel, Calif., Smith improved to 3-0 in dual match action with a 6-2, 6-3 victory versus Caitlin McGraw.
The reigning two-time ACC Player of the Week, 45th-ranked Ester Goldfeld dropped the first set to Dieters 6-3 but battled back to win the second set 6-1, and claim the third set tiebreaker 10-5 on her way to clinching the 4-0 victory for Duke.
