Tide Women's Tennis Starts Roberta Alison With 10 Wins
9/24/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
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The University of Alabama women’s tennis team opened its 2004-2005 season Friday with the Roberta Alison Fall Classic at the Alabama Tennis Complex.
The Crimson Tide won 10 of 12 matches overall and saw all four of its doubles teams advance to Saturday’s finals. Alabama didn’t drop a doubles match all day.
The nation’s sixth ranked doubles team in Ashley Bentley and Robin Stephenson made quick work of Samford’s team of Katie Crawford and Sarah McKey with an 8-1 victory. Bentley and Stephenson then defeated Tara Browning and Cigdem Duru of Texas Tech 8-3 to advance to the finals of doubles flight “A”.
In doubles flight “B” Melissa Day and Mari Muller won convincingly in each of their matches 8-1 and 8-2. They’ll play Auburn’s duo of Petra Bercik and Ashley Cowart in the championship round. Melissa Minor and Natalie McElveen advanced to the finals of flight “C” and Sonja Nikolic and Hillary Barnes will play for the flight “D” championship.
In singles, Stephenson and Bentley showed why they are two of the nation’s top players in collegiate tennis. Stephenson won her first-round match in straight sets 6-3, 6-3. Bentley over-powered Louisville’s Kelly Taylor 6-1; 6-0 to advance to tomorrow’s flight “B” semifinals.
Junior Melissa Minor had to come from behind to win her first round, flight “D” match against Samford’s Katie McMiller. Minor won the first set 6-3 before falling behind 4-1 in the second. She won five straight games to clinch the match, 6-3, 6-4.
The Tide’s Melissa Day played the longest match of the day in what was her Alabama debut. Day, a transfer from West Virginia, lost to Mississippi State’s Tarryn Rudman 7-6, 2-6, 1-6 in just over three hours. Day trailed in the first set 3-2 but broke Rudman’s serve to take a 4-3 lead. Day finally clinched the match’s opening set with win in the tie-breaker.
In other singles action for the Tide, sophomore Mari Muller lost a hard fought, three set match to Auburn-Montgomery’s Anna Moncolova, 3-6, 5-7, 3-6 in the first round of flight “E”. Freshman Jessica Runge defeated Birmingham-Southern’s Laura Kirk in flight “H” 7-6 (2), 6-1 and sophomore Sonja Nikolic won a tiebreaker in the second set to defeat Louisville’s Arianna Marshall 6-2, 7-6 (9) in flight “G”.
