Rice University
Rice Invite
Owls Advance Nine of Ten in Invite Opener
9/23/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
By Chuck Pool (cpool@Rice.edu) -
The Rice women's tennis team opened its 2016 Fall tournament schedule by advancing nine of 10 entries to the winners bracket in singles and doubles at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Friday.
Despite a two-hour delay after a late morning downpour, the full slate of 64 matches were completed heading into Saturday's second round.
The Owls opened play by capturing all three doubles matches to start of the day and then moved on to take six of seven singles matches.
Returning All-American Katherine Ip picked up a 6-2, 6-0 win over Miriam Rossell of UTSA in the first round of 1A singles and teamed with Fernanda Astete to defeat Bianca Mok and Morgan Barnhill of Denver 6-4 in 1B Doubles.
Miami transfer Wendy Zhang began her career with a pair of wins, downing TCU's Dominika Bashota 6-2/7-6(2) in 1A singles and then combing with Lindsey Hodge to take a 6-4 win over Eva Dench and Pippa Carr of Texas State.
Alison Ho and Svannah Durkin combined to race past Texas State's Julia Navajo MelendezMelendez and Ana Perez, 6-1 in 2A Doubles and Ho added a singles wins over Fabienne Gettwart of Sam Houston State, 6-2, 7-5 in 2B Singles while Durkin drew a bye in the first round of 2A singles.
Astete dispatched of Denisa Ibrahimovic of UTSA, 6-2, 6-2 in 3A singles, joining freshman Priya Niezgoda in the winners bracket. Niezgoda downed Macie Elliott of SMU 6-3, 6-2.
Hodge dropped a 6-3, 6-4 verdict to Mok in the 1B singles opener.
Second round action opens at 8:30 Saturday morning with doubles action.
Players Mentioned
