Women's Tennis Captures C-USA Title

April 22, 2001

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - - The Tulane women's tennis team won its first-ever Conference USA Tournament championship with a 4-0 victory over top-seeded UAB at the Hattiesburg Racquet Club on Sunday.

The win was Tulane's sixth straight dual match victory and improved the Green Wave to 13-11 overall. The Green Wave, seeded second in the league tournament, earned Conference USA's automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament and will make its second tournament appearance in the last three seasons. The Green Wave entered the match ranked 51st in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association polls, while UAB was listed 61st by the ITA.

"It's great to win the first women's tennis championship for Tulane," head coach David Schumacher said. "Hopefully this will spur us on to bigger and better things. The first thing is to try to win our next match, which will be in the NCAA Tournament."

For the sixth straight match, Tulane was perfect in singles play. After having won the opening doubles point for an early 1-0 lead, the Green Wave recorded wins at No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5 singles to claim its first-ever league championship.

Nancy Kockott gave the Wave a 2-0 advantage when she recorded a 6-3, 6-4 victory over UAB's Natascha Immele at the No. 4 spot. Julie Morris provided some heroics at No. 2 singles to give Tulane a 3-0 lead. After having won her first set against UAB's Monika Schmid, Morris found herself trailing 5-2 in the second. However, the sophomore rallied to win five straight games to take the second set 7-5, moving the Wave just one point from victory.

The final point came from junior Maiko Cook, who cruised to a 6-4, 6-1 win over Femke DeBoer at the No. 5 spot to wrap up the Green Wave's title.

The Wave won two of three doubles matches to take an early 1-0 lead. Anna Monhartova and Anneli Axsater teamed to give the Green Wave an 8-3 win at No. 3 doubles before Kockott and Olga Mikhailova recorded a 9-7 victory at the No. 2 spot.

"We played a tough schedule early on, but I think it has more than paid off," Schumacher said. "We may have started off the season with some losses to highly-ranked teams, but we are now guaranteed a winning record. Maiko had a real tough match with her opponent today, but she has learned how to battle and how to think to win and those are the things she did in her match."

In addition to the women's title, the Tulane men also won the Conference USA Tournament, held at the Wave's own Goldring Tennis Center. The Green Wave men, also seeded second, upset No. 1 seed South Florida 4-1 on Sunday to claim its first league title since 1997.

Tulane 4, UAB 0Singles:Tulane                  UAB                 Winner  ScoreAnna Monhartova            Mirela Vladulescu   -   DNFJulie Morris          Monika Schmid           Tulane  6-3, 7-5Joyce Bergman            Margaux Melsheimer  -   DNFNancy Kockott           Natascha Immele         Tulane  6-3, 6-4Maiko Cook          Femke deBoer            Tulane  6-4, 6-1Anneli Axsater          Tanja Pflugfelder   -   DNFDoublesTulane                  UAB                 Winner  ScoreMorris/Bergman          Vladulescu/Schmid   UAB 8-6Kockott/Mikhailova  deBoer/Melsheimer   Tulane  9-7Axsater/Monhartova  Immele/Pflugfelder  Tulane  8-3

Tulane University Athletics

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