Women's tennis dominates at Cal Nike Invitational

September 29, 2008

The Arizona State Women's Tennis team collected a strong showing of wins over the weekend as they dominated some elite competition over the weekend at the Cal Nike Invitational. Sophomore <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/mckenna_kelcy00.html">… McKenna</a> prevailed with the ITA Singles Gold crown as well as the ITA Doubles Gold title with teammate <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/hein_micaela00.html">M… Hein</a>.<separator></separator>The tournament started off well for ASU as all three Devils in the ITA Gold Singles bracket advanced past the first round with straight set wins putting <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/abdala_laila00.html">L… Abdala</a>, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/hein_micaela00.html">M… Hein</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/mckenna_kelcy00.html">… McKenna</a> into the round of 16. Only McKenna prevailed though, taking another straight set win over Saint Mary's Claire Soper and another over BYU's Kristina Doerr in the quarterfinals to slate her against the eight-seed Bojana Bobusic in the semifinals. After falling in the first set in a gritty 5-7 loss, McKenna stormed back to take the next two 6-4, 6-4 en route to a finals match-up against Alexandra Poorta.<separator></separator>Poorta put up a valient effort in the first set, winning 7-5 but as before McKenna proved she could come back winning the second set 6-2 and jumping on a 4-2 lead before Poorta retired due to injury, giving McKenna the singles crown.<separator></separator>In the ITA Singles Blue Bracket, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/brown_ashlee00.html">A… Brown</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/simmons_sianna00.html"… Simmons</a> both collected straight set wins in the round of 32 and round of 16 to advance to the quarterfinals of the bracket. <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/brown_ashlee00.html">A… Brown</a> was slated to face the one-seed, Marion Ravelojaona of Cal, where Brown came out strong on the Golden Bear, taking the first set 6-2, but the effort wasn't enough as Ravelojaona came back to take the next two 6-2, 6-3 to advance and eventually win the bracket. Simmons also was unable to advance past the quarterfinals, falling to Fresno State's Danon Beatty.<separator></separator>On the doubles end, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/brown_ashlee00.html">A… Brown</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/simmons_sianna00.html"… Simmons</a> paired up for only their second tournament to come out and dictate the pace of the ITA Doubles Blue bracket, which eventually they emerged the winners of. Simmons and Brown seemed to breeze through the competition until the semifinals where they faced the two-seed of Bruna Paes and Laura Pola of Fresno State who gave ASU a tough 8-6 match with the Sun Devils winning. In the finals, Long Beach State's Deborah Armstrong and Lisa Sutton came out blazing to give ASU a run for their money, but Brown and Simmons were too much to handle as they rallied back to take a 9-8(3) win and the bracket title.<separator></separator>In the doubles Gold bracket, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/mckenna_kelcy00.html">… McKenna</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/hein_micaela00.html">M… Hein</a> came out to shine as they ripped off two wins to advance to the finals of the bracket. Along the way they collected an 8-5 win over Long Beach State's Hannah Grady and Staphanie Jeanes before taking on their own teammates <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/abdala_laila00.html">L… Abdala</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/vanhorne_ali00.html">A… Van Horne</a> who gave them a tough match with McKenna and Hein taking the 8-6 win. In the finals, they paired up against Cal's Bojana Bobusic and Jana Juricova, who proved to have their hands full with the Sun Devils as ASU rolled to an easy 8-2 win and the doubles Gold Bracket title.<separator></separator>For complete Cal Nike Results, please click <a href="http://www.tennisinformation.com/tourny/5/1/8/5/2/6/9/draws.asp">here.<…; The Sun Devils will return to action this week, representing at the All-American Championships in Los Angeles, Calif. before preparing for the ITA Regional Championships October 23-27 in San Diego, Calif.<separator></separator>