Women's Tennis To Participate In Rice Classic Over Weekend
Sep 24, 2009 | Women's Tennis
Sept. 24, 2009
Coach Sisk's Comments Heading Into The Rice Classic
Complete Schedule For Day 1 Of The Rice Classic
Watch as Coach Sisk discusses the Tulane women's tennis team
NEW ORLEANS - Fresh off a solid performance at last week's Memphis Collegiate Invitational, the Tulane University women's tennis team will look to build some momentum for the rest of the season when the Green Wave travel to Houston to participate in the Rice Classic over the weekend at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium.
In the fall opener last weekend in Memphis, the Green Wave went 16-14 in singles play while posting an 8-7 mark in doubles competition. Tulane will be facing a tough slate of solid teams featuring Conference USA opponents Rice and SMU, in-state rival LSU, along with DePaul, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas-Arlington, Texas-San Antonio, Texas State.
The Rice Classic is slated to begin on Friday, Sept. 25, at 8:30 a.m. with the first round of doubles play while the second round will follow at approximately 9:30 a.m. The first round of singles is slated for 11 a.m. From there, the tournament continues on Saturday, Sept. 26, with the final round of doubles at 8:30 a.m. and round two of singles play at 9:30 a.m. The Rice Classic will conclude on Sunday, Sept. 27, with the final round of singles starting at 8:30 a.m.
"We're really excited about going to Rice," Tulane head women's tennis coach Terri Sisk said. "There are a lot of nationally-ranked programs that are going to be there - SMU, LSU, and obviously Rice is a good school tennis wise. We're excited about that.
"I realize that taking this young of a team into a situation like that can sometimes might be a little bit overwhelming, especially playing three freshmen. But we have to put them in high-stress situations really quickly to prepare them for the rest of the year. When the spring rolls around, we have a lot of nationally-ranked programs on the schedule and we've got to be ready to compete against them."
Sophomore Sharon Siegel leads the team with a 3-0 record in singles play after winning the Gray 3 Draw last weekend, while sophomores Lindsay Dvorak, Marcela Fonseca, Mariam Kurdadze and Jessica Lange - along with freshman Emma Levy - follow closely with identical 2-1 marks.
In doubles play, Fonseca and fellow sophomore Caroline Gerber, Dvorak and Elizabeth Hamlin, and rookies Hila Elster and Emma Helistén share the team lead with 2-1 records.
"I thought we did a really good job last weekend," Sisk said. "We ran into a lot of tough teams, a lot of teams riddle with upperclassmen. The girls did a really good job. The first day of the tournament wasn't our best performance. There was a lot of nerves out there. The girls settled down over the next 24 to 48 hours and played much better tennis. I think you could definitely tell it was our first weekend, and as the weekend progressed, we did much better."
Day one of the Rice Classic pits Kurdadze against DePaul's Anna Redesci in Flight 1, Levy against Texas-San Antonio's Maria Mazzeffolli in Flight 2, Hamlin against Katarina Milinkovic of DePaul in Flight 3, and Helistén against SMU's Abi Lui. In other Friday singles action, Dvorak will face Rice's Becca Lin in Flight 5, Gerber will go against Sam Houston's Laura Peschke in Flight 6 and Fonseca squares off with Kavya Menon of Texas-San Antonio in Flight 7.
Elster and Lange will play in Flight 8 where they will play Texas' Julia Wiegand and Sam Houston's Cally Waermer, respectively. Lange, who is one of three student-athletes in a round-robin Flight 9, will enjoy a bye on Friday before facing Rice's Mecklin Ragan on Saturday and Texas-Arlington's Britany Byrd on Sunday.
On doubles action, Kurdadze and Levy will play Texas-San Antonio's Sara Adams and Michaela Silva in Flight 1, Dvorak and Hamlin will battle DePaul's Gia McKnight and Katarina Milinkovic in Flight 2, and Elster and Helistén will square off against Alex Rasch and Jessica Jackson of Rice in Flight 3.
Tulane has a pair of doubles teams in Flight 4 as Gerber and Fonseca will play Sam Houston's Laura Peschke and Cally Woerner while Lange and Siegel will battle the tandem of Jennifer Nowland of Texas State and Sloane Mathis of LSU.
"From the first day of practice until now, we're much more fit than we were at the start," Sisk said. "The girls took some time off over the summer and it showed a little bit, but they've got their feet under them a little bit, they're doing better and we're looking to progress every time that we play."
Following the Rice Classic, Tulane continues fall play on Oct. 23-26, in Auburn, Ala., at the ITA Southern Regionals.
Players Mentioned
