HAMMOND, La. – The New Orleans Privateers women's tennis team finished the George E. Fourmaux Invitational with a sixth place finish after falling to Southeastern 3-2 on Sunday afternoon at the SLU Tennis Courts.
DAY ONE
The Privateers got out of the blocks quick with an opening day 4-1 victory over Louisiana Tech. New Orleans took advantage of a short-handed La.Tech squad that only had four players available for the weekend.
Salma Abdelrahim and
Brittany Johnson won the doubles match 6-0, 6-2 against a pair of Southeastern players who filled in for Louisiana Tech. In singles, the momentum was firmly on the Privateers side throughout the afternoon.
Sophomores,
Mar Gendra and
Lea Alguacil both earned straight set victories at flight two and four respectively.
Trang Dao added the fourth New Orleans point of the day when she rallied from down a set to win 4-6, 6-2, 10-5 against Sonia Chen.
DAY TWO
It was a tough day for the Privateers who endured two narrow defeats of 3-2 score lines against Lamar and West Florida.
In the first match against Lamar, the Cardinals won a three-set bout in doubles. Natalia Molina and Laura Sola Grau won the deciding set 10-4 to earn the doubles point. In singles, three of the four matches were decided in straight sets.
Claudette Gilhespie and
Ank Vullings earned points for the Privateers. Gilhespie took a 6-4, 6-4 decision. Vullings dominated the first set at flight four but lost the second in a tiebreak. However, she controlled the third set winning by a 10-3 margin.
Later in the day, the Privateers again fell on the short end of a three-set match in doubles against the West Florida Argos.
Once the match turned to singles play, Gilhespie earned her second win of the day when she beat Jenifer Rink 6-0, 7-5. Gendra also earned her second singles win of the weekend with a 6-4, 6-0 victory at flight three.
The deciding match occurred at flight one. Dao lost the first set against Karolina Silwanowicz but came back to emphatically take the second set 6-1. In the 10-point tiebreaking third set, Silwanowicz won 10-5 to give West Florida the win.
DAY THREE
The Privateers played for fifth place against conference foe, Southeastern at the SLU Tennis Courts. Southeastern earned the first point after a flight one singles victory in straight sets.
The next two matches went to the Lady Lions in third set tiebreakers. On both occasions, at flight two singles and doubles, Southeastern rallied from a 9-7 deficit to win both matches and secure a fifth place finish.
New Orleans earned points from Abdelrahim and Johnson who both won at flight three and four singles. Both came out on the plus side of a tiebreak in the first set to help set the tone in their respective matches.
FROM COACH KANGA
"We lost three matches 3-2. I think it's tough because of the way we lost. Yesterday and today we had match points but I think nerves got the best of us."
"If we can learn from this weekend, we'll be that much better in the spring. This was a good look at what we need to do to improve."
"We just have to keep on working harder. This was a great tournament and we played some very good teams. We had an opportunity to try different combinations in doubles and overall it was a good effort."
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