Sept. 26, 2005
DENTON (SMU) - The SMU women's tennis team turned in another successful weekend at the 2005 Mean Green Invitational held Sept. 23-24, at the Goldfield Tennis Center in Denton, Texas. In the team's second tournament of the fall season, several Mustang players reached the semifinals and finals in both singles and doubles. Senior Svetlana Kouzmenko posted another solid weekend, winning a tough match over Cigdem Duru of Texas Tech (6-4, 6-3) to advance to the semifinals in singles Flight A, before falling to eventual Flight A champion Klara Jagosova of UTA (6-2, 6-1).
Freshman Natalia Bubien reached the quarterfinals in singles Flight A, also falling to Jagosova (6-2, 6-1) to prevent a match with her doubles partner Kouzmenko for the right to play in the championship match.
In Flight B singles, the Rambally twins each made the semifinals before bowing out of the tournament. Brooke defeated Lynley Wasson of North Texas (6-3, 6-1) in the quarterfinals, before falling to Janet Durham of Texas Tech (6-2, 6-3) in the semis. Halley dispatched of Katja Kovacic of Texas Tech (6-1, 6-3), but fell to eventual Flight B champion Anete Rozkalne of UTA in a hard-fought battle (6-4, 7-5).
Freshman Kristen Reid finished the weekend 4-0, winning Flight C singles. Reid defeated fellow Mustang freshman Monica Neveklovska (6-4, 6-2) in the semis and captured the championship with a win over Jana Cucciniello of Texas State (6-3, 6-2).
In doubles play, the duo of Kouzmenko and Bubien recorded a 2-1 record in Flight A winning their round of 16 match over Duram/Hunter of Texas Tech (8-4) and their quarterfinal match over Fankam/Kovacic also of Texas Tech 8-3. The Red Raiders finally bested SMU's No. 1 pair when Cigdem/van der Drift won the semifinal match 8-6.
Flight B doubles also saw strong play from the Mustangs as Jen Chay and Reid reached the championship match. The tandem easily defeated Bouwer/Mills of Tyler JC (8-1) and Carillo/Holder of Texas Tech (8-0), before falling in the championship to Brown/Rozkalne of UTA in a hard fought contest 9-7.
Head coach Rob Howarth is pleased with his team's first two performances on the young season.
"I am very happy with the way the entire team is working right now, both on the practice court as well as in match play." Howarth said. "Svetlana has had some very good performances and played one of her best matches in a long time to win her quarterfinal match against a tough Big 12 opponent in Duru. Kristen Reid also was impressive winning the C Flight in singles. We now have to keep this up, as we have a couple of weeks to get ready for our next tournament in Midland."
The SMU women's tennis team returns to the court Oct. 14-16, as they travel to Midland, Texas, to compete in the Midland Invitational. For complete recaps, schedules and results for SMU tennis visit SMUMustangs.com.
