Rice University
USTA/ITA Texas Regional Championships
Beazant, Durkin and Ip Advance in Texas Regional Singles
10/16/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Senior Natalie Bezant and junior Katherine Ip breezed to wins while freshman Savannah Durkin advanced after an injury to her opponent to highlight action for Rice in the opening round of action at the 2014 USTA/ITA Regional Championships held at the Hurd Tennis Center on the campus of Baylor University in Waco on Thursday.
Beazant, who is seeded tenth, opened play with a 6-1, 6-0 win over SMU's Anna Kate Anderson. She moved on to the round of 32 on Friday where she will face Anastasiya Shestakova Of North Texas on Friday morning.
Ip, the tourney's eighth seed, dispatched of Sam Houston's Madeleine Moritmore, 6-2, 6-1 to advance to a Friday morning meeting with UTSA's Miriam Roswell.
Durkin dropped the opening set of her match to Eva Paalma of Texas A&M, but rallied to take the second set and was leading 2-1 in the third when Paalma was force to retire because of an injury. Durkin will take on Baylor's Blair Shankle, the 16th seed in the next round.
The Owls' other three entries in singles dropped their opening matches and will now compete in the consolation rounds.
Alison Ho dropped a pair of tiebreaks to fall to Abilene Christian's Kaysie Hermsdorf 7-6(2); 7-6(4) in her opening match. Stephanie Nguyen fell to Judit Vives of Texas A&M Corpus Christi, 6-0; 6-3 and Solomiya Zinko dropped a 6-3, 6-2 decision to Anna Mamalat of Texas A&M.
Action begins at 9 a.m. on Friday with the second round of doubles play. The Owls three entries (Natalie Beazant/Alison Ho; Katherine Ip/Stephanie Nguyen; Savannah Durkin/Lindsey Hodge) all received opening round byes.
Players Mentioned
