Tournament Central
Members of the Texas A&M women's tennis team will be competing against the top collegiate players in Texas this weekend as they participate in the USTA/ITA Texas Regional Championship at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center on the TCU campus in Fort Worth
Play begins Friday at 8 a.m.,and runs through Tuesday afternoon, and participants from at least 17 Texas schools will be in attendance.
"This tournament will be a good opportunity for all of our players, higher and lower in the lineup, to go against the best players in the region," A&M first-year head coach Howard Joffe said. "It will be an exciting tournament, especially since we will have almost all of our players competing. They have two months of school and practice behind them, so it will be interesting to see how they have progressed, and this tournament will be a great yardstick."
The champions of the USTA/ITA Texas Regional, along with winners from the other 11 regions across the United States, advance to the prestigious USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships. That event is Nov. 3-6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, New York.
A&M is fielding three doubles teams, with action getting underway at 8 a.m. on Friday.
Junior Janelle Cuthberson and freshman Dané Vorster open the round of 64 against Bryony Hunter and Giorgia Pozzan of Houston. In addition, seniors Sheri Olivier and Lauren Santacroce, who are coming off a semifinal finish at the HEB Baylor Invitational last weekend, take on
Christine Foote and Liucija Smaizyte of UT Arlington also at 8 a.m.
A&M's Cristina Sanchez-Quintanar and Sun Wen are the No. 2 seed in doubles. They received a first-round bye and open play in the round of 32 at 9:30 a.m.
Three Aggies open singles play Friday at 12:30 p.m. in the round of 128. Wen takes on Olivia Smith of TCU; Santacroce faces Leanne Mascall of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi; and Cuthbertson meets Kenna Kilgo of Texas Tech.
Vorster takes the court at 1:30 p.m. to face Nikki Sanders from Texas Tech.
Olivier and Cristina-Sanchez both received byes. Olivier begins play in the round of 64 at 2:30 p.m. against the winner between Stefania Nicolae of TAMU-CC and Maya Zein-El-Abdin of Texas.
Sanchez-Quintanar, who along with Wen advanced to the singles finals at the HEB Baylor Invitational last weekend, is the No. 3 seed in the field. She faces the winner between Ilona Serchenko of North Texas and Gabriella Vazquez of UT-El Paso at 4 p.m.
"The wins last weekend were very good but not shocking," Joffe said. "Sun and Cristina are fine players, and it was encouraging for Lauren and Sheri to get a win against the No. 1 doubles seed, but this is a start of a new tournament, and our goal over the fall has been to continue to get better and better with every opportunity."