April 22, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; April 22, 2011 - The Penn State women's tennis team (6-13, 2-6) will play their final dual matches of the season as they travel to Indiana to take on the No. 68 Purdue Boilermakes on Sat., Apr. 23, and the Indiana Hoosiers on Sun., Apr. 24. Sophomore Petra Januskova (Ottawa, Canada) and junior Fernanda Perrotta (Buenos Aires, Argentina) are now ranked No. 79 in doubles. This is the second time of the year the duo has been ranked in the top 80 of doubles.
The Nittany Lions split a pair of home matches over the weekend as they defeated the Minnesota Golden Gophers 4-3 and fell in a tough match to the Wisconsin Badgers, 4-3. Januskova went 4-0 on the weekend with two singles victories including a victory over Minnesota's No. 74 Natalia Pintusava. Also earning two singles victories over the weekend was sophomore Amy Simidian (Carlstadt, N.J.). The doubles pairing of Perrotta and freshman Carmen Sandor (Toronto, Canada) won both of their doubles matches over the weekend. Fellow freshman Marie-Frederique Bedard (Montreal, Canada) won a clutch match against Minnesota's Yuliana Umanets to give the Nittany Lions the win.
The No. 68 Purdue Boilermakers are led by the doubles pairing of No. 54 Mara Schmidt and Jennifer Rabot. Rabot plays at the No. 1 position in singles and recently defeated Northwestern's No. 13 Myriam Sopel. Head coach Laura Glitz is in her fourth season at the helm of the Boilermakers. During the 2010 season, the Boilermakers broke team records for single-season wins and most wins at home in a season. Purdue is currently ranked third in the Big Ten behind No. 10 Michigan and No. 17 Northwestern.
Indiana is led by sophomore No. 62 Leslie Hureau, with 13 singles victories on the season. Also ranked in singles is junior Evgeniya Vertesheva at No. 115. In doubles, the Hoosiers have the duo of Leslie Hureau and Myriam Sopel ranked in the top 50 at No. 48. The Hoosiers are led by head coach Lin Loring, with more wins in Division I women's tennis history than any other coach with 760. Lorin has been at the helm of the Indiana Hoosiers for the past 34 seasons. He has led the Hoosiers to 16 Big Ten championships and earned a 104-match win-streak against Big Ten opponents from 1978-1985. Loring became the first coach to ever surpass 700 wins on Jan. 20, 2008.
The Nittany Lions will begin postseason play the Big Ten tournament in Ann Arbor, Mich. on Thu., Apr. 28.
--NITTANY LIONS--