Tennis Begins Fall Season
10/21/2005 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
Oct. 21, 2005
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - After having two fall tournaments cancelled due to hurricanes, the University of Houston tennis team embarks on the 2005-06 season at the Wilson/Intercollegiate Tennis Association Southwest Women's Regional Championships Friday-Tuesday, Oct. 21-25 at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center on the Texas A&M campus.
Many of the top Division I women's collegiate tennis players in the southwest will be competiting at this event. In addition to host Texas A&M, this event features top women's players from 25 Division I schools, including Texas, Baylor, Tulane and TCU, which were all listed in the top 20 of the final 2005 ITA team rankings.
The tournament includes a 64-player qualifying singles draw, with eight players qualifying for the 64-player main draw, as well as a 64-team doubles draw.
Loli Gomez and Brianna Bateup have already qualified for the main draw. Gomez, the national Junior College champion from a year ago, faces off against Anna Sydorska of TCU on Saturday at 1pm, while Bateup squars off with Svetlana Kouzmenko of SMU at noon. Both Cougars have a potential match-up with seeded players in the second round that begins the next morning.
Six Cougars are in the qualifying draw that begins on Friday led by No. 13 Kami Miller who opens with Marissa Brown of UTSA. Freshman Vicky Simpson begins her Cougar career against Melanie Brown of Prairie View A&M. Sonja Nikolic, a tranfer from Alabama, takes on Gracie Glassmeyer of Tulane.
There are also three Houston players on the bottom half of the qualifying draw. Sarah Reimer plays Thais Botroletto of Louisiana-Lafeyette, while Tiffany McLaughlin hooks up with Antoinette Majors of Prairie View A&M. Yolandi Terblanche gets after Christina Amo of Texas State. All qualifying matches begin at 8:30am.
The singles finalists and doubles champion from this event will earn spots in the November 3-6 ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships hosted by The Ohio State University at the Racquet Club of Columbus.
Players Mentioned
