Jan. 22, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; January 22, 2011 -
The Penn State women's tennis team (0-1, 0-0) lost its home opener to the Akron Zips, 5-2, on Saturday at the Indoor Tennis Center.
"We needed to compete better today, Akron came out and fought hard and competed. We have some work to do before our next match," said head coach Dawna Denny. Sophomore Petra Januskova (Ottawa, Canada) and junior Fernanda Perrotta (Buenos Aires, Argentina) earned points for the Nittany Lions with wins in their singles matches. Januskova came into the match ranked No. 59 in the ITA Top 100 and defeated Prang Pantusart, who went 21-2 last season as Akron's No. 1.
The No. 68 doubles pairing of Januskova and Perrotta fell to Zara Harutyunyan and Angelina Jogasuria in first doubles action, 8-4. The duo started the match in an early 2-2 tie, but fell behind and could never recover. Senior Denisa Zobeideh (Weston, Fla.) and freshman Marie-Frederique Bedard (Montreal, Canada) played a hard-fought match against Angelika Jogasuria and Zara Harutyunyan, as they were tied 5-5 in second doubles play. However, Angelika Jogasuria and Pantusart won the next three games to claim the doubles point with an 8-5 win.
Sophomores Sarah Henderson (Bloomington, Ind.) and Amy Simidian (Carlstadt, N.J.) claimed the only doubles win for Penn State as they took an early 6-2 advantage in their third doubles match against Akron's Jeramie Benjamin and Anya Baronayte and cruised to an 8-5 victory.
Akron's Pantusart defeated Zobeideh, 6-2, 6-1, in the fourth singles match to push Akron's lead to 2-0. At the No. 2 spot, Simidian fell to Angelina Jogasuria, 6-2, 7-6 (3) to give the Zips a 3-0 lead. In third singles play, Bedard jumped out to the early lead with a 7-6 (5) win in the first set over Angelika Jogasuria. However, Angelika Jogasuria rebounded with wins in the next two sets for the 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1 win to clinch the match for the Zips.
In the matchup of No. 1's, Januskova outlasted Harutyunyan, 6-4, 2-6, 6-0. In the first set, Januskova won a hard-fought game to take a 5-4 lead before eventually winning the set 6-4. Januskova was down 4-1 early in the second set and fell, 6-2, but bounced back to sweep the third set, 6-0.
Junior Maria Prishlyak (Kiev, Ukraine) fell to Akron's Anya Baronyate, 6-1, 6-1, in sixth singles. In the final match of the afternoon, Perrotta quickly bested Akron's Natalia Kuvakina, 6-1, 6-1, in fifth singles to put the final score at 5-2.
In an exhibition, junior Kristen Roth (Ardmore, Pa.) defeated Akron's Jeramie Benjamin, 8-6.
The Nittany Lions will look for their first win of the season against rival Pittsburgh Wednesday at 4 p.m., at the Penn State Indoor Tennis Center. Penn State will remain home for a doubleheader on Tuesday, February 8 as it faces Bucknell at 2 p.m. followed by California (Pa.) at 6 p.m. Big Ten play will begin February 11 as the Nittany Lions travel to Columbus to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes at 2 p.m.
--NITTANY LIONS--
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