Jan. 5, 2012
Manoa, Hawaii -
The Penn State women's tennis team (0-1, 0-0) gave a great effort in their season opener against Hawaii (1-0), but ultimately came up short and lost, 4-3. The Nittany Lions tallied wins in two singles matches and two doubles each.
In doubles, both teams battled hard and the Nittany Lions took the first point of the day by winning two-of-the-three matches. Penn State's number one pair, Petra Januskova (Ottowa, Canada)/ Nina Sertic (Zagrab, Croatia), defeated Hawaii's Katarina Poljakova/Jamie Pawid, 8-6. The duo of Fernanda Perrotta (Buenos Aires, Argentina)/ Marie-Frederique Bedard (Montreal, Canada) took on Barbara Pinterova/Martina Kostalova but ultimately lost the close match, 8-6. In the final doubles match Carmen Sandor (Toronto, Canada) and Chelsea Utting (Peachtree City, Ga.) teamed up to beat UH's Xenia Suworowa/Aglae Van den Bergh, 9-8, with an 8-6 tiebreaker.
Penn State and Hawaii then squared off in singles. Januskova - who is ranked No. 96 in the preseason ITA singles rankings - started off the match strong with a win over Katarina Pliakova, 6-3, 6-0. Utting also picked up a point for the Nittany Lions, defeating Martina Kostalova, 6-0, 6-4 in the number four match.
In the number two match Sandor fell to Jamie Pawid, 0-6, 1-6. After that Bedard put up a good fight against Barbara Pinterova but ultimately lost, 5-7, 1-6. In the number five match Xenia Suworowa defeated Sertic, 3-6, 1-6. And in the last match of the day Perrotta fell to Kelsey Daguio, 2-6, 6-3, 4-6.
The Nittany Lions will take on the No. 6 ranked Baylor Bears today. After that, Penn State returns to Happy Valley for a string of four straight home matches.
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