Oct. 19, 2007
STANFORD, Calif.- Stanford women's tennis looked sharp on the opening day of competition at the ITA Northwest Regional Championships on Friday afternoon, with seven singles participants and three doubles teams advancing out of the first round.
Four different seeded Cardinal singles players (No. 3 Celia Durkin, No. 4 Jessica Nguyen, No. 5 Lindsay Burdette and No. 11 Whitney Deason) followed first-round byes with convincing wins in the round of 64.
Durkin defeated Pacific's Olga Cumenyuk 6-3, 6-2, Nguyen breezed past Pacific's Kateryna Nezhura 6-0, 6-1, Burdette cruised by UC Davis' Andrea Phillips 6-1, 6-1 and Deason handled Washington's Tara Simpson 6-2, 6-1.
Hilary Barte, seeded No. 16, posted identical 6-1, 6-0 victories over Erin Young of Saint Mary's and Sasha Fisher of Pacific.
Fellow freshmen Jennifer Yen and Carolyn McVeigh also looked impressive. Yen blanked Jenna Kappel of UC Davis 6-0, 6-0 before outlasting Washington's Melinda Wong 6-2, 6-7 (6), 6-2. McVeigh defeated Sacramento State's Luba Schifris 6-2, 6-0 before downing Santa Clara's Carmen Pham 6-0, 6-1.
Isamarie Perez won her opening match when Nevada's Florence DeVrye withdrew but was then defeated in the next round by Oregon's Anna Powaska 7-5, 6-2.
The doubles team of Deason and McVeigh recorded back-to-back 8-0 wins over Washington's team of Joyce Ardies/Wing-Yau Chan and Pacific's Nezhura/Clara Schuhmacher.
The teams of Burdette/Durkin and Barte/Nguyen also posted victories following byes. Burdette/Durkin defeated Washington's Aleksandra Malovic and Allison Rainey 8-1 while Barte/Nguyen topped California's Marion Ravelojoana and Cristina Visico 8-4.
Stanford's fourth team of Lejla Hodzic and Yen fell to San Francisco's Cecilia Gratian and Jennifer Heinser.
Play continues Saturday at 8 a.m.