University of Houston Athletics
Tennis Ready for ITA Regionals
10/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
Oct. 18, 2006
HOUSTON - The University of Houston tennis team returns to the courts at the ITA Regional Tournament at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center on the TCU campus.
The tournament gets underway Thursday with singles qualifying and main draw doubles action.
"The ITA Regional is the most important tournament of the fall season," head coach John Severance said. "It's the bar that you measure the progress your team has made. It's also a tool that the preseason rankings in the spring are based on."
The Cougars have five players in the qualifying draw. Leila Salek, Neila Starratt and Sonja Nikolic are seeded players, while Anna Djananova will open with a seeded player. Vicky Simpson would be slated to face a seeded player in the second round of qualifying.
The good news for Houston is that the pairings are set up to where teammates will not have to face each other to qualify. Loli Gomez and Rebecca Franzi are already in the main draw, which opens Friday afternoon.
"The five girls that are in qualifying have a big challenge ahead of them to get into the main draw," Severance said. "I've told them that they can't complain that they were in the qualifying until after they qualify. We need matches, so being in qualifying is not necessarily a bad thing."
Houston will have four doubles team in the main draw that begins Thursday afternoon. Severance has decided to use three similar doubles pairs that he had two weeks ago at the Cougar Fall Draw. Gomez teams with Salek, Franzi will play with Nikolic and Simpson will pair with Djananova. The only change is that D'Ondra McGee will match up with Starratt.
"We worked quite extensively on doubles strategy during these last 10 days of practice, and we'll see how it pans out at this tournament," Severance said. "If the pairs work, we'll go onto to San Antonio later this month. If not, we'll go back to the drawing board. I don't want to judge our doubles at this point because of the work and time we've put on doubles heading into this tournament."
A complete recap of each day's action will be available on UHCougars.com
The tournament gets underway Thursday with singles qualifying and main draw doubles action.
"The ITA Regional is the most important tournament of the fall season," head coach John Severance said. "It's the bar that you measure the progress your team has made. It's also a tool that the preseason rankings in the spring are based on."
The Cougars have five players in the qualifying draw. Leila Salek, Neila Starratt and Sonja Nikolic are seeded players, while Anna Djananova will open with a seeded player. Vicky Simpson would be slated to face a seeded player in the second round of qualifying.
The good news for Houston is that the pairings are set up to where teammates will not have to face each other to qualify. Loli Gomez and Rebecca Franzi are already in the main draw, which opens Friday afternoon.
"The five girls that are in qualifying have a big challenge ahead of them to get into the main draw," Severance said. "I've told them that they can't complain that they were in the qualifying until after they qualify. We need matches, so being in qualifying is not necessarily a bad thing."
Houston will have four doubles team in the main draw that begins Thursday afternoon. Severance has decided to use three similar doubles pairs that he had two weeks ago at the Cougar Fall Draw. Gomez teams with Salek, Franzi will play with Nikolic and Simpson will pair with Djananova. The only change is that D'Ondra McGee will match up with Starratt.
"We worked quite extensively on doubles strategy during these last 10 days of practice, and we'll see how it pans out at this tournament," Severance said. "If the pairs work, we'll go onto to San Antonio later this month. If not, we'll go back to the drawing board. I don't want to judge our doubles at this point because of the work and time we've put on doubles heading into this tournament."
A complete recap of each day's action will be available on UHCougars.com
