SFA Tennis Dominates in Last Day of Season Opener
9/10/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Sept. 10, 2011
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The Stephen F. Austin women's tennis team closed out the SFA Invitational Saturday afternoon. SFA hosted McNeese State, Tarleton State, Abilene Christian, and Collin College.
The women closed out the singles play right away, going undefeated, 15-0. With the top two draws, having both SFA finalists, the draws were flipped around. In the A draw, Senior Alina Shazhko dominated ACU in straight sets, while freshman teammate Tereza Bekerova beat Collin College 6-2, 6-2. In the singles C draw, Julia Lorca closed out Abilene Christian with a 6-1, 6-4 win.
"The numbers look gaudy, but if you take a look at the individual scores you'll see that we had a lot of very close matches, some because we played very worthy opponents and others simply because we didn't focus and let them hang around," head coach Patrick Sullivan said. "The good news is that even when we dug ourselves holes we competed well and came just a doubles tiebreaker away from going undefeated on the weekend."
SFA continued to dominate the invitational by dropping only one match in doubles play, going 8-1 overall. The freshman duo, Malena Gordo and Berkerova pulled it out to win a close doubles match against ACU, winning in a tiebreaker, 9-8 (10-3).
"We're young and have a long way to go in the mental and physical toughness departments, but this is a hard-working and very high-character group and I'm incredibly excited about our future.
The women return to the court on Sept. 23 when they travel to Natchitoches, La, to compete in the Northwestern State Fall Invitational. -SFA-
