Ronney and Dunlap pick up wins at ITA Regional

Wednesday, October 10

Las Vegas, Nev.

All Day

Montana

ITA Mountain Regional

10/16/2018 1:30:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Complete Results UM RESULTS

By: Montana Sports Information

The future stars of Montana tennis shined the brightest amongst the lights of Las Vegas over the weekend as a pair of underclassmen led the Griz at the ITA Mountain Regional Tournament, which featured some of the best players in the nation.

In singles action, sophomore Julia Ronney and freshman Lauren Dunlap each advanced to the round of 32 with opening day victories in the main draw.

In doubles, Ronney and Dunlap combined for the first time as a pair and also picked up UM's only win of the tournament in that draw as well.

Ronney, Montana's No. 1 player for most of the season her freshman year, continued where she left off last spring, dominating in a first-round win over Maggie Chen from the defending Big Sky Champion Idaho Vandals (6-0, 6-2).

In the second round, Ronney put up a fight in a rematch against Utah State's Sasha Pisareva, improving on a 2-6, 2-6 loss in the UM/USU spring dual, this time falling 7-5, 6-1 in Las Vegas.

For head coach Steve Ascher, Ronney's performance is an indicator that she should once again be one of the top performers in the league after earning an All-Big Sky Honorable Mention as a freshman.

"She's coming along. I think her strategy is getting cleaner, and just the way she's handling herself point-to-point is better. She's progressing well," said Ascher.

Following her defeat in the main draw, Ronney picked up another strong win at the ITA Regional in a Friday back draw against Wyoming's Maria Oreshkina (6-1, 6-1) to come away from the weekend 2-1 in singles play.

Perhaps even more of a revelation for the Griz in Las Vegas was Dunlap, the true freshman from Florida playing in her first national-level collegiate event.

Dunlap opened singles play with a dominant 6-2, 6-0 victory over Weber State senior Sara Parker, starting her week with a win over a Big Sky opponent.

In the second round, Dunlap faced the biggest test of her career to date, meeting the No. 2 seeded and No. 49 nationally ranked Aiwen Zhu of the hometown UNLV Rebels.

In a spring dual with UNLV last season, Zhu paved the way for a 7-0 Rebel sweep of the Griz, defeating Ronney 6-0, 6-1 on court one.

This time, Dunlap gave Zhu all she could handle, however, forcing a tiebreaker in the first set and pushing the eventual quarterfinalist in the second to drop the match 7-6, 6-4.

"I think that match against Zhu was a good indicator of her ability," said Ascher. "As a freshman, she was playing free, and you could see she really enjoyed being on that stage and being in that moment against a highly ranked player. So those are good signs. There's a lot to work on, but there are moments that are exciting."

Dunlap also played in a Friday back draw, putting in another upperclassmen-like performance against Utah State's Annaliese County, a four-star freshman and the former No. 210-ranked player in the nation, in a 6-4, 6-3 defeat.

In doubles, Ronney and Dunlap paired for the first time as Grizzly teammates and kept up their momentum from the singles rounds.

The pair got ahead of the Big Sky Conference game in the opening round, picking up an 8-2 win over Southern Utah's Weiss/Cozzi pair 8-3 before going down to Utah's Calton/Lamoreaux pair.

Also competing for the Grizzlies at Regionals was sophomores Eimear Maher and senior Nathalie Joanlanne.

After dropping their opening matches in the main singles draw, both forced three-set matches in the consolation round. Maher picked up a first set 6-2 win over Boise State standout Vanessa Timm before falling 2-6, 10-4 in the next two sets.

Joanlanne also won her first set 6-3 over Montana State's Linnea Fristam but dropped two in a row to fall 3-6, 6-1, 10-5.

The two also paired in doubles but dropped both their opening round match and consolation match to teams from UNLV and Northern Arizona.

After a busy three-week stretch that saw UM travel nearly from coast-to-coast for three-straight tournaments, the Griz now turn their attention to the final fall event of the year, the Barb Chandler Classic at Boise State, Oct. 26-28.