Nov. 3, 2017
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA--The Penn State women's tennis team completed day one of play at the Kitty Harrison Invitational in Chapel Hill, N.C. and the Hokie Invitational in Blacksburg, Va. Both tournaments continue through Sunday, November 5.
Play at the Hokie invitational included both doubles and singles matches. Bennett Dunn (Orlando, Fla.) and Shannon Hanley (Kensington, Md.) got things started in the Orange Doubles Flight. They were defeated by Vasiukhina and Kalita of Miami (OH) 8-3.
Hannah Kratky (Greenwich, Conn.) and Liyin Xu (Chengdu, China) were the other doubles pair for the Nittany Lions in the Maroon Doubles Flight. They fell to Blalock and Dzeubou of Radford University 8-1.
In singles Xu fell to Lara Soares of Liberty 6-2, 6-1, in the Sacrifice Flight. Hanley fell to Maria Siopacha of George Washington 6-3, 6-2, in the Brotherhood Flight. Kratky was defeated by Shene Disbergen of Virginia Tech in the Ut Prosim flight, 6-0, 6-0.
Dunn saw her first singles action of the fall season. She lost to Melissa Ifidzhen of Virginia Commonwealth University in the Leadership Flight, 7-6(2), 6-2.
"We didn't get off to a great start today," said assistant coach Mike Fenwick. "This is the adversity we will have to work through and look forward to getting better tomorrow."
Switching gears to the Kitty Harrison Invitational, the Nittany Lions also competed in singles and doubles.
Penn State got started off with a doubles match-up against Elon. The team went 1-2 in three hard fought doubles matches.
Frederikke Svarre (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Hanna Wikberg (Stockholm, Sweden) were defeated by Zenoni and Paraja 8-5. Samantha Smith (Cary, N.C.) and Gabby O'Gorman (Gunnedah, N.S. Wales, Australia) won against Lucas and Koniaev 8-5. Ines Milosevic (Burlington, Ontario) was paired with Abele of Davidson in doubles and they fell to Moore and Braschi 8-5.
The team then had a singles match-up against Davidson. The team went 3-2 against Davidson.
O'Gorman won against Feaster 6-3, 6-4. Svarre was victorious against Scholvinck 6-3, 6-2. Smith won against Armas 6-3, 6-3.
Both singles losses were very hard fought, and both went to the third set tiebreaker. Wikberg fell to Centenari 7-5, 2-6, 1-0 (11-9). Milosevic lost to Abele 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 (10-8).
The team also played South Carolina in doubles, falling in all three matches.
Svarre and Wikberg fell to Martins and Cline 8-5. O'Gorman and Milosevic lost to Davies and Chinellato 8-4. Smith was paired with Abele of Davidson and they were defeated by Berg and Rohrabacher 8-3.
"We need to start the day tomorrow better in doubles," said head coach Chris Cagle. "Our singles play got off to a good start and we lost a few close tiebreakers, but overall we competed very well in singles. Tomorrow is a new day and we need to backup the singles play with competing at a high level again."
Both the Kitty Harrison Invitational and the Hokie Invitational continue play tomorrow with the Nittany Lions seeing more action in both tournaments.
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