Oct. 3, 2012
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State women's tennis team will split up this week with Petra Januskova and Chelsea Utting playing in the ITA/Riviera All-American Championships while the rest of the team travels to the Tribe Invitational in Williamsburg, Va.
Petra Januskova and Chelsea Utting will begin main draw play at the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships on Thursday. Petra will compete in the singles draw as well as the doubles draw, where she will pair with Chelsea Utting.
Utting was ousted from the singles tournament on Saturday by Olivia Janowicz who was ranked as high as No. 37 last season for the defending national champion Florida Gators. The No. 52 ranked Januskova will take on Aeriel Ellis of Texas in the first round of main draws at 3:30 p.m. ET. Ellis is ranked No. 20 in the ITA preseason singles rankings and helped lead the University of Texas at Austin to a No. 10 finish in the rankings last year.
In the doubles draw, Januskova and Utting, the No. 42 ranked pair in the doubles preseason poll, will face the duo of Olivia Smith and Millie Nichols from TCU. Smith and Nichols are ranked at No. 16 in the poll. Januskova bested Nichols in the singles tournament at the Midland Invitational last month, while Nichols and Smith ousted Carmen Sandor and Katherine Whiteaway in the doubles competition. The match is scheduled to start at noon ET.
The rest of the Nittany Lions will head to Williamsburg, Va. for the Tribe Invitational hosted by the College of William & Mary. Sandor, Whiteaway and Devan McCluskey will compete for the first time since the Midland Invitational where Sandor took home the backdraw singles crown. Jacqueline Zuhse and Sarah Henderson are coming off of the Cissie Leary Invitational two weeks ago looking to build on their fall campaign in Williamsburg.
There will be ten teams competing in this tournament including Harvard who finished last season ranked No. 72 in the ITA poll. Other teams participating in the Tribe Invitational include James Madison, Kansas, Marshall, Norfolk State, Old Dominion, Penn and VCU.
Action begins on Friday at 10 a.m. with one round of doubles matches followed by one round of singles. On Saturday, they will begin at 9 a.m. and complete the doubles tournament before playing one round of singles. They will close out the invitational on Sunday with the final round of singles starting at 9 a.m.
Both draws will consist of eight players or pairs and will be played at the Millie West Tennis Facility, the Commons Tennis Courts and the McCormack-Nagelson Tennis Center. The draws for the Tribe Invitational will be released on Thursday. Following this weekend's action, the Nittany Lions will be back on the court for the ITA Regionals at Virginia Tech on Friday, Oct. 19.
For the full main draw singles bracket visit http://www.itatennis.com/Assets/2012+Riviera+Main+Draw+Singles.pdf and for the doubles bracket visit http://www.itatennis.com/Assets/2012+Riviera+-+Main+Draw+Doubles.pdf