Michigan
Northwestern
Michigan Falls to Northwestern in Big Ten Title Match
4/29/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- The No. 26-ranked University of Michigan women's tennis team dropped a 4-0 decision to No. 1 seed Northwestern in Sunday's (April 29) Big Ten Conference Championship title match at the Baseline Tennis Center, marking the third straight year that the Wildcats have defeated the Wolverines in the finals of the conference tournament. Northwestern (21-5) lived up to its No. 5 national ranking, taking the doubles point and the first three singles matches completed against No. 3 seed Michigan (16-7) to clinch its league record-tying ninth straight conference tournament crown.
Northwestern's No. 10-ranked doubles team of Alexis Prousis and Georgia Rose handed graduate senior Jenny Kuehn (Leipzig, Germany/Sportgymnasium Leipzig) and sophomore Chisako Sugiyama (Parsippany, N.J./The Montclair Kimberley Academy) an 8-2 loss at No. 1, and Lauren Lui and Keri Robison ended senior Kara Delicata (LaSalle, Ontario/Sandwich Secondary School) and freshman Tania Mahtani's (Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif./Palos Verdes Peninsula HS) 10-match winning streak with an 8-2 win at No. 2 to clinch the first team point for the Wildcats.
Northwestern took a commanding 3-0 lead after posting a pair of straight-set singles victories at Nos. 4 and 6. The 124th-ranked Lui earned a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Mahtani for the Wildcats second team point, and Nazlie Ghazal tallied a 6-0, 6-0 triumph over junior Allie Shafner (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek HS) to put NU one win away from claiming the title.
Prousis provided the clincher, claiming a 6-1, 6-2 win over Delicata at No. 3 to wrap up Northwestern's 15th straight win over Michigan.
The Wolverines will head home to Ann Arbor and await the selection of the tournament field for the 2007 NCAA Championships (May 11-28). Selections for the 64-team field will be announced Tuesday (May 1) with participants in the singles and doubles championships revealed the following day.
Following are match-by-match results:
Singles
No. 1 -- #88 Chisako Sugiyama (U-M) vs. #13 Georgia Rose, 6-6 (abandoned)
No. 2 -- #83 Jenny Kuehn (U-M) vs. #39 Samantha Murray, 0-6, 4-5 (abandoned)
No. 3 -- Alexis Prousis (NU) d. Kara Delicata, 6-1, 6-2
No. 4 -- #124 Lauren Lui (NU) d. Tania Mahtani, 6-1, 6-3
No. 5 -- Elizabeth Exon (U-M) vs. Keri Robison, 6-3, 1-2 (abandoned)
No. 6 -- Nazlie Ghazal (NU) d. Allie Shafner, 6-0, 6-0
Doubles
No. 1 -- #10 Prousis/Rose (NU) d. Kuehn/Sugiyama, 8-2
No. 2 -- Lui/Robison (NU) d. Delicata/Mahtani, 8-4
No. 3 -- Lindsey Howard/Shafner (U-M) vs. Alexis Conill/Murray, 4-7 (abandoned)
Order of Completion: Doubles 1-2, Singles 4-6-3
Contact: Marc Ressler (734) 763-4423
Players Mentioned
