Friday, September 11, 2009

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (Sept. 11, 2009) - The ETSU women's tennis team opened its 2009 fall season in strong fashion with a number of outstanding performances Friday at the 17^th annual William and Mary Fall Invitational in Williamsburg, Va.

"We started out good today," said head coach Steve Brooks. "The girls have worked hard in practice and it was good to get out on the courts and test where we are as a team at this moment."

In singles Flight A, senior Yevgenyia Stupak (Kyiv, Ukraine) picked up her first win dropping Virginia freshman Erin Vierra in a long three-set opener 7-5, 2-6, 6-2. After a shorter than usual break between matches, the No .98^th ranked ETSU captain then fell in her quarterfinal contest to Harvard's Holly Cao, 6-3, 6-4.

Two brackets down fellow ETSU teammate Paula Jaime (Madrid, Spain) joined Stupak as she faced another Harvard player in Agnes Sibilski. In her first contest of the morning, the ETSU sophomore rolled past Sibilski with an impressive 6-2, 6-4, opening-round win. The Madrid, Spain native continued to roll in the quarterfinals, dropping Virginia Tech's Shannon Betts in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.

Rounding out Flight C play was sophomore Karina Kedzo (Puerto Ordaz, Venezulea), who opened play by dropping Maryland's Julia Huschke 6-4, 4-6, 7-6. Unfortunately, for Kedzo her momentum wouldn't last long as Anik Cepeda, of host William and Mary, cruised to a 6-3, 6-0 quarterfinal win.

Over in Flight E junior Tara Sheets (Gate City, Va.) gave the Lady Bucs their fifth win of the day with an impressive 6-0, 6-4 win over Richmond's Catherine Crystal. However, like many of her teammates the local Tri-Cities product fell just short in her second match, falling to Maria Prishlyak of Penn State, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5.

Closing out the singles scores for ETSU was junior Andra Voinea (Brasov, Romania) and newcomer Diana Navrostskaya (Lviv, Ukraine), who dropped two matches in Flight D.

In addition to the singles play ETSU got a great performance in No. 2 doubles from the Lady Buc duo of Jaime and Kedzo. The third seeded team in Bracket B reached the quarterfinals by dropping the Virginia Tech team of Blow and Conley, 8-2.

Unfortunately for ETSU, Stupak and junior Kelly Holtzhausen (Johannesburg, South Africa), dropped their first round contest to William and Mary's duo of Pop and Vulovich, 9-7.

"Overall, today was a learning experience," said Brooks. "Our play was up and down and that tends to happen early in these type of fall tournaments. We looked good this morning but soon as our players conditioning went down our girls started to tense up and struggle."

Attached above are the final results from Day One. For more information on the championship ETSU women's tennis team, please visit www.ETSUBucs.com.