Women's tennis opens spring season with match against South Alabama

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by Shay Gilmore

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After a vacillating fall season, the Rice women's tennis team kicked off their spring season last weekend in Mobile, Ala., with a dual match against the University of South Alabama.

With South Alabama currently ranked 26th in the nation, 12 places ahead of the Owls, this match would have been an excellent opportunity for the women to improve their ranking. However, the match proved to be only an exercise in frustration for the team.

Assistant women's tennis coach Emily Schaefer felt that the result of the match wasn't due to a poor performance by the team.

"We didn't play poorly; in fact, we played rather well. We just played a team that seemed to play like a top-15 team on that day. They played with an unusual amount of versatility," Schaefer said.

Junior Jessica Gagnon agreed. "This would have been great for us to have won, but those girls were playing really well last weekend, and we just didn't meet the challenge," she said.

The women had been hard at work prepping for their play against South Alabama since their return to practice on Jan. 14.

The results of the Mobile match were rather dismal. Of the six singles and three doubles matches played, Rice was only able to come away with one win.

Sophomore Vessie Ivanova struggled through her first set 7-5 and then came on strong to win her match 6-2 in the second.

Gagnon was the only other Rice woman in the singles division not to get beaten in straight sets by her opponent. Gagnon let her opponent push her around through the first set 0-6, but she turned on the heat and rolled 6-2 in the second set.

However, Gagnon was unable to maintain her momentum and lost 4-6 in the third.

In doubles action, the team of Gagnon and freshman Jennifer Velasco presented the only real challenge to South Alabama. After dropping the first set 2-6, Gagnon and Velasco came back with solid serving and consistent strokes to win the second set 6-3.

However, their efforts were met tit-for-tat in the third set 5-7 as their opponents pulled out a win.

The upcoming schedule is not going to get any easier.

"We're really looking forward to our matches in the next few weeks," Schaefer said.

"Every team that we'll be going up against is a strong one, and each match would be a great opportunity for us to advance in the national ranking.

"We're looking at a pretty solid schedule in the weeks ahead."

The Rice women are looking forward to a match with the University of Arkansas which will be at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium on Feb. 10.

This weekend the women will travel to Lafayette, La., to face Southwest Louisiana State University.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the February 2, 1996 issue.

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