Rice University
SMU Invitational
Astete Leads Owls at SMU Invite
10/9/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Rice freshman Fernanda Astete picked up wins in both singles and doubles to lead the Owls during the first day of action at the SMU Invitational at the SMU Tennis Center on Friday in Dallas.
Astete combined with Solomiya Zinko to down Arkansas' Mia Jurasic and Nicole Breaux, 6-3, in the Blue doubles flight. She came back to down Beth Hayward of UTEP 6-1, 6-2 in the first round of action in the Pony flight in singles. She and Zinko will take on Jazmin Britos and Marta Sramkova of Louisiana Tech on Saturday in the Blue flight semis and then will take on Jessica Birowski of UTA in the Pony singles semis.
Rice's other entries dropped opening round matches on Friday and look to bounce back in Saturday's consolation round.
Savannah Durkin and Emily Smith dropped a 6-3 decision to Lois Wagenvoort & Daphne Wisscher of UTEP. They will vace ACU's Nada Marjanovic and Ansley Boarman on Saturday.
In singles, Smith dropped a 6-4. 7-5 decision to Elizabeth Thoms of UTA and will face Erin Walker of ACU.
Durkin dropped a tough three-set match to Livia Cirnu of Kanasas 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to move into a consolation matchup with Kaysie Hemsdorf of ACU.
Zinko also fell in three sets in her opener, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 to Angeles de los Rios of UTA. She will next face Iva Bago of K-State.
Action resumes at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the SMU Tennis Center.
Players Mentioned
