U-M Trio Participates at ITA National Summer Championships
8/15/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Muresan opened the tournament with a first-round bye and reached the semifinals with a second-round win over Dartmouth's Georgiana Smyser (6-1, 6-1). She followed with victories over Princeton's Taylor Marable (6-2, 6-1), Ohio State's Julie Blackmore (6-1, 6-0) and Alabama's Courtney McLane (6-0, 6-2).
Muresan's semifinal match was her only match of the tournament that went to a third set. Muresan held theearly edgewith a 6-4 win in the opening set before Voelker bounced back with a 6-3 second-set win to even the match. Voelker advanced to the finals with a 10-5 super-tiebreak win.
In doubles action, Muresan and Chisako Sugiyama(Parsippany, N.J./The Montclair Kimberley Academy) advanced to the finals before falling to Miami's Michaela Kissell and Laura Vallverdu, 8-3. After opening with a bye, the pair advanced with an 8-0 win over Kelsey Haviland and Katie Kargal before defeating the tandem of Ragini Acharya and Anamik Bhargava, 8-5. The U-M duo then defeated Ohio State's Julie Blackmore and Cameron Hubbs, 8-4, en route to the finals.
Rika Tatsuno(Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif./Palos Verdes Peninsula HS) and Sugiyama also participated in the singles competition. Tatsuno advanced to the quarterfinals before falling to eventual champion Ragini Acharya, 6-0, 6-2, while Sugiyama reached the fourth round before falling to Virginia's Claire Bartlett, 3-6, 6-4, 1-0(9).
Tatsuno also teamed with Yumi Hasegawa in the doubles competition. Thepair fell in the first round to Illinois' Leigh Finnegan and Marisa Lambropoulos, 8-6.
The ITA National Summer Championships presented by the United States Tennis Association (USTA) are the conclusion of the ITA Collegiate Summer Circuit, which is played at 26 regional sites throughout the country in July.
The singles and doubles champions from the ITA National Summer Championships earn wild cards into the first national tournaments of the 2008-09 collegiate tennis season -- the D'Novo Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships in October.
ITA National Summer Championships Site
Contact: Jessica Poole (734) 763-4423
