Women's tennis builds through UC Irvine Invite
11/16/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
The University of Montana women???s tennis team recorded a 12-12 cumulative win-loss record in doubles and singles play in the highly competitive UC Irvine Anteater Invitational Friday-Sunday. Senior Kayla Moyse, junior Rebecca Bran and freshman Constance Alexander all finished the weekend with fifth place results in their respective brackets.
Of the six teams at the tournament, host Irvine finished the spring 2009 season highest in the Intercollegiate tennis rankings at No.57. Also present was last season???s Big Sky No. 3, Northern Arizona, UC San Diego, UC Riverside, and Loyola Marymount.
The tournament was a seeded round robin structure with six separate brackets of eight competitors or doubles teams.
Friday, the Grizzlies were limited to a single team win by the doubles match up of Moyse and Alexander when they defeated the UCSD combination of Jacquelyn Davis and Melissa Breisacher 8-2. Freshman Heather Davidson would be the only Grizzly to force her opponent to three sets in her 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 loss to Hannah Holladay of UC Irvine.
The Grizzlies rebounded Saturday to go 6-2 for the day. In all five of the Montana singles matches, opponents would either push the Grizzlies to seven-point sets or to a third set in the case of Rebecca Bran???s defeat of Taskeen Bains from UCSD 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the top-level bracket.
Sunday???s play would show mixed results for the Grizzlies as the team went 5-3 in the final day of competition. Due to first day losses, Grizzly singles players were limited to a fifth place maximum in Sunday???s playoff structure. Montana athletes achieving that end were Rebecca Bran, with her dominant 6-1, 6-1 defeat of Melissa Breisacher of UCSD; Constance Alexander who defeated Bliss Nixon of Loyola-Marymount 6-3, 6-3; and Kayla Moyse in her 6-0, 6-2 defeat of Katie Mulloy of UCSD.
R. Bran, Moyse, Alexander, and Davidson, all went 2-1 in singles play for the weekend.
Junior Amanda Bran was limited to doubles matches in order to rest an ailing foot.?? Bran, playing with Maddy Soule, would take their sole win of the weekend 8-4, in a Saturday doubles match with Taskeen Bains and Anita Athlavale of UCSD.
Following play Sunday, UM coach Steven Ascher said, ???Friday may have looked worse on paper than it really was. Considering travel, playing on new, foreign courts and the fact that we were matching up with a team that has historically been a top-40 program, we pulled out some really good matches.??
???Even players like Maddy (Soule), who suffered those 6-3 losses, played at a respectable level; In Courtney Byron, she faced the most talented player that she has seen all year.
???Last year we came to this tournament and won two singles matches total. In light of that history, we are really excited to have come out with the 8-7 that we achieved here this year.
???The girls adapted pretty well as they saw more and more matches through the weekend. Some matches of note were the wins by Heather over Kimmi Cox of Santa Clara 7-5, 6-1; Constance over Bliss Nixon of Loyola Marymount 6-3, 6-3; and Rebecca over Taskeen Bains of UCSD.
???It was a big step for our team to have players like Kayla and Constance win two doubles and two singles at this level. Last season, our team only had winning records at No. 1 and 2 singles and now we are proving to be strong across the board.
???This weekend we saw our returners develop into stronger competitors and our younger players displaying signs of good maturation. It???s a good way to end the fall season.???
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