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Women's tennis falls to Rice in C-USA final

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Women's tennis falls to Rice in C-USA final

Postby PonyPride » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:23 pm

Women's tennis suffers heartbreaker to Rice in C-USA Championship final
Mustangs fall 4-1 to Owls

April 23, 2006

GARLAND, Texas (SMU) - In a hard-fought battle for the conference crown, the number one-seeded Mustangs were unable to overcome the seventh-seeded Rice Owls in the 2006 Conference USA Women's Tennis Championship. Rice earns its first league tournament title in school history capturing the crown with a 4-1 win at the Garland Tennis Center where the championship was held over the four day period. The Owls pulled off three consecutive upsets during the four-day tourney over league opponents Marshall, Houston and SMU en route to the title victory and C-USA's automatic bid to the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

Rice captured the doubles point with a tough 8-6 win at No. 1. The Mustangs and Owls split the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles, before senior tandem of Blair DiSesa and Medeja Egic took control for Rice. The pair defeated SMU's Svetlana Kouzmenko and Natalia Bubien for the go-ahead point.

At No. 2 doubles, Monica Neveklovska and Kristin Reid beat Owl's Kimberley Patenaude and Alanna Rodgers with an 8-3 Mustang victory, while Tiffany Lee and Christine Dao knotted the teams up 2-2. The sophomore duo beat the SMU twin sister pair of Brooke and Halley Rambally, 8-2.

Feeding off of the doubles victory, DiSesa quickly extended the Owls lead, 2-0, with a win over Kouzmenko. DiSesa, who entered the C-USA Championship as the highest-ranked singles player (No. 69 slot in the latest ITA ranking), needs only five more singles wins to move into fourth-place on Rice's all-time singles victories list.

The teams then split the next two singles matches. Egic defeated Mustang rookie Reid at No. 4 singles, 6-2, 6-0, while Halley Rambally took the first and only SMU point of the day with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over freshman Emily Braid at No. 6.

However, it was Rodgers who once again came through for the Rice Owls. The freshman clinched the team match-point at No. 5 singles in Friday's quarterfinals win against second-seeded Marshall. Rodgers then came off the courts first in Rice's 4-1 defeat over crosstown rival and third-seeded Houston in the semifinals. The Nassau, Bahamas native decided the victory with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Brooke Rambally.

The loss breaks a 12-match win streak for the No. 51 Mustangs and avenges a 4-3 setback the Owls collected earlier in the season.

Although this concludes their regular season, the Mustangs await the possibility of receiving a NCAA at-large bid.

Match #10 - Garland Tennis Center
(7) Rice 4 def. (1) SMU 1

Singles
No. 1 Blair DiSesa, RICE, def. Svetlana Kouzmenko, SMU, 6-3, 6-0
No. 2 Natalia Bubien, SMU, vs. Christine Dao, RICE, dnf (6-3, 1-6, 3-1)
No. 3 Georgiana Marta, SMU, vs. Tiffany Lee, RICE, dnf (1-6, 6-1, 0-1)
No. 4 Medeja Egic, RICE, def. Kristen Reid, SMU, 6-2, 6-0
No. 5 *Alanna Rodgers, RICE, def. Brooke Rambally, SMU, 6-4, 6-3
No. 6 Halley Rambally, SMU, def. Emily Braid, RICE, 6-1, 6-3

Doubles
No. 1 DiSesa/ Egic, RICE, def. Kouzmenko/ Bubien, SMU, 8-6
No. 2 Reid/ Neveklovska, SMU, def. Patenaude/ Rodgers, RICE, 8-4
No. 3 Lee/ Dao, RICE, def. B. Ramablly/ H. Rambally, SMU, 8-2
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