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October 22, 2004 > Sports > DiSesa advances to quarters, freshmen win in first round

DiSesa advances to quarters, freshmen win in first round

By Amber Obermeyer | Thresher Editorial Staff

The women’s tennis team continued its maturation process last weekend, as the freshman-dominated squad had three players advance to the round of 32 at the Wilson/ITA Southwest Regional Championships in College Station. Junior Blair DiSesa and freshman Kimberley Patenaude played doubles together for the third time in four fall tournaments, after advancing to the consolation finals at the Baylor Invitational and the semifinals of the top flight at the Hilton/Houston Plaza Rice Classic in September. DiSesa and Patenaude continued to be Rice’s most successful doubles pairing, winning their Oct. 15 first-round match 8-3. The teams of senior Tracie Chong with freshman Dominique Karas and junior Amy Cao with freshman Christine Dao lost their first-round matches. On Saturday, in the first round of the main singles draw, three Owls advanced to the round of 32, highlighted by Karas’ 6-2, 5-7, 6-0 upset of ninth-seeded Biljana Dimovska of the University of Houston. Head coach Roger White said Karas’ first-round loss at the Riviera/ITA All-Amercan Championships helped her last weekend. ‘The score on paper was very lopsided, but the match was very close,’ White said. ‘That elevated her — when she drew a seed at regionals, she almost took her [opponent] out in two sets. She just had one little hiccup, and then took her out 6-0 in the third. That experience gets the freshmen ready for the really tough matches in the spring.’ Patenaude and DiSesa joined Karas as first-round winners, but neither Patenaude nor Karas could continue her singles success past the first round. The eighth-seeded DiSesa advanced to the quarterfinals, as her seeding would have predicted, defeating LSU’s Staten Spencer in straight sets, 6-0, 6-3 in Sunday’s second round and following that with a 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 win over UTA’s Pavla Mesterova later that day. In Monday’s quarterfinal, however, DiSesa lost to SMU’s Jenny Langer in straight sets. ‘I lived up to my seed, but unfortunately I think I definitely could have done better,’ DiSesa said. ‘The girl I played in the quarters was definitely beatable, but I did not take advantage of it on that day.’ After drawing the tournament’s fourth seed in the first round, Chong rebounded in the consolation bracket, advancing to the semifinals with wins over Megan Schmulbach of North Texas and A&M’s Marisa Druss, as well as an opponent’s defaulting due to injury. ‘This fall has been quite a building process,’ White said. ‘From the very first tournament up at Baylor, every tournament we’ve played, we’ve had some tough draws. Even though playing those top players is tough, it will pay off for us in the long run. It’s been really good for the team to see what a top collegiate player is and measure their games against them.’ DiSesa fell short of advancing to the final, which would have earned her an invitation to the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, so the entire team will instead travel to Champaign, Ill. for the Midwest Blast, a mock dual-match event. Rice will play Illinois, South Florida and a third team at the tournament held in the format of dual matches. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing the freshmen get introduced to a dual match because it’s so different from the tournaments we’ve been playing,’ DiSesa said. ‘It will be a great way for us to bond as a team and to work on getting that momentum that’s so pivotal in the spring dual matches.’

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