Ladies tamed Lions for now
Gents suffers two tough losses; road to playoffs roughens

Another season of exciting tennis commenced over the weekend. For both the women’s and men’s team, the first matches were played against the York Lions at York University on Friday.

The ladies team got stronger this year with the addition of another NCAA player, Isabel Jarosz. She played for the University of Illinois Fighting Illini in her freshman year. Laura Ozolins, also with NCAA experience (four years at Georgia Tech), teamed up with Jarosz to win one of the three doubles matches.

Unfortunately, the team of Ekaterina Alchits and Mary Martchouk and the team of Karina Avramenko and Meghan Cheung lost the other two doubles matches. The ladies needed to win four out of six singles matches. Jarosz defeated Natasha Kimberg, OUA Individuals champion for the past two year. Ozolins defeated Kimi Chu who has always been tough against U of T. Alchits won her match with ease and Avramenko defeated Adalia Quek to help the Blues secure a 4-3 victory over York.

This marks the first time we have beaten York, the defending OUA champions, for as long as I can remember. The women’s team from York has won the last three OUA championships. However, the team knows beating York won’t mean anything unless the ladies continue to play well and stay sharp in their five matches next weekend. They will take on McGill on Friday at York. And it gets tougher from there as they will play two double headers on Saturday and Sunday. It will be interesting to see how the ladies handle so much tennis in one weekend. By the end of Saturday, we should have a good idea as to whether the ladies have a chance to dethrone the York Lions at the OUA Finals two weeks from now.

The gents weren’t as fortunate in their first outing. The gents got off to a good start by winning the doubles point. The best news here is that new comers Alfonso Lorenzana and Amin Madani played a tremendous match together. As gusting wind roared through the Rexall Centre grounds, both Andrew Anderson and Ben Eisen lost their first matches of the season. The Blues soon found themselves needing to win three of the four remaining singles matches.

Armand Pede could not have had a better start to his match as he took the first set 6-0. His serve and volley game was “sick”. However, in the second set, he may have relaxed a bit and his opponent Filip Sierpinksi picked up his game a bit, he lost his serve in the first game and didn’t break back until Sierpinski was serving for the set at 5-4. Pede picked up his game towards the end and won the tie-breaker.

Our number three doubles team had mixed results in singles: Lorenzana lost; Madani won. The entire fixture now comes down to Rowan Thompson’s match against Erik Salka of York. Members of the ladies team who had finished earlier found themselves courtside cheering on Thompson along with the guys. Thompson took the first set. However, towards the end of the second set, big points like deuce points and break points started going Salka’s way. Thompson went on to lose the second set. The third set saw Salka break early. Thompson saved three match points en route to breaking Salka back to even the match at 5-5. They traded breaks again after that to send the set to a breaker. Thompson got down early and lost the match on Salka’s fourth match point. It was a tremendous effort. Craig Mercer, a member of last year’s team, now an assistant coach said afterwards that “despite the loss, it was a great start to the season.” I couldn’t agree more.

On Saturday, the gents traveled down the QEW to face the Brock Badgers in St. Catharines. The doubles point has always been an Achilles’ heel for the Blues and it was no different on this day. Pede and Brent Williams won their match. However, the team of Anderson and Thompson and the team of Lorenzana and Madani lost, 6-8 and 7-8 respectively. Winning four out of the six singles proved to be too much for the Blues. Anderson, Thompson bounced back from their defeats on Friday and won. Pede put up another serve-and-volley clinic. Eisen lost another tough match. Williams and Kevin Chow were inserted into the line-up. Both lost tough matches. The gents have dug themselves a big hole in their quest to make the playoffs. They will play twice this Friday against Waterloo and McMaster. The big match comes on Saturday as the Blues take on the defending champs, the Western Mustangs. Despite the two close fixtures, Mercer and the players seem very confident that the Blues can pull off some tough wins next weekend to make the playoffs.

- CL | 23 Sep 2004, 00:00

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