Tennis serves bounce-back wins

Women's tennis

In a busy few days of tennis at the Spokane Racquet Club, the Gonzaga University women's tennis team avenged losses on Friday with dominant victories later in the weekend.

Freshmen Katie Edwards and Kylie Peek shined in the women's team's 5-2 loss to Idaho on Friday.  Together, the two of them won their fourth doubles match of the season with an 8-2 victory over Idaho's Alejandra Lozano and Molly Knox.  Edwards and Peek also both won their singles matches.  Edwards defeated Idaho's Almudena Sanz 7-6 (3-0), 6-3, while Peek defeated Sophie Vickers 1-6, 6-4, 6-2.  However, the Vandals won the rest of the doubles and singles matches to notch the 5-2 victory.

"I think that the freshmen have proved themselves this weekend," team captain Kristina Zauere said.  "They have showed what they are capable of and did an incredible job with supporting the team."

On Sunday, the women's team rebounded from its  loss to Idaho with a 6-1 victory over Lewis-Clark State College.  The Bulldogs won all three doubles matches and five out of the six singles matches.  GU made quick work of the Warriors, too, as four of the Bulldogs' singles victories went only two sets.

"I was happy with our performance this weekend, but there are definitely things we need to improve as we get deeper into the season," head coach D.J. Gurule said.  "We struggled at times over the weekend, but overall I know that we are headed in the right direction.  The team is really working hard and has the right attitude."

This weekend the women's team heads to Southern California for three matches, beginning Friday vs. UC Riverside at 2 p.m.  Meanwhile, the men's team resumes play on Feb. 17 at 1 p.m. in their West Coast Conference opener at the University of Portland.

Men's tennis

The men's team began the weekend with a narrow 4-3 defeat on Friday to the University of Idaho, the No. 63-ranked team in the country. GU started off the match with doubles victories from the team of Zhia Hwa Chong and Scott Sullivan and the pair of Alvaro Nazal and Muzeen Ismath to earn the doubles point.

The Bulldogs then raced to a 2-0 lead when Levin Guillermo defeated Marius Cirstea, who has been ranked in the top 100 in the country many times throughout the course of his career, in two sets by a score of 7-5, 6-4.  It was the first time that Guillermo had played in the No. 1 singles position this season.

"This accomplishment felt great," Guillermo said.  "It was a very good win for me and I could not have done it without my team and coach supporting me throughout the match. I think the main thing that really helped me play well this match was our team getting the doubles point. It definitely gave us the momentum and I was able to go into my match loose and ready to go. I guess I played well enough to have won it."

After two singles victories by the Vandals, the three-hour match between GU's Alvaro Nazal and Idaho's Abid Akbar came to an end with Akbar picking up the 7-6, 4-6, 7-6 victory, which gave Idaho a 3-2 advantage.

GU team captain Scott Sullivan won his first set over Jose Bendeck before dropping the next two to give Bendeck the 5-7, 6-0, 6-4 victory and allow the Vandals to clinch the match.  In the last match of the night, Chong defeated Idaho's Cesar Torres 6-2, 7-5.

"We were all very disappointed with our loss to Idaho that we were just a point or two away from winning in several matches," Sullivan said.  "I think that we would beat that team seven or eight times out of 10, but Friday just didn't quite go our way. At the same time, having such a close match with a highly ranked and respected Idaho team gives us confidence in knowing that we can compete with anyone and we'll have many more opportunities to prove ourselves."

GU then responded from the tough loss to Idaho by shutting out Seattle University 7-0 the following day.  Among the many highlights were Chong, improving to 6-0 in singles this season with a 6-3, 6-2 victory Pablo Mosquera Perez and winning 5-7, 6-3, 11-9 in his season debut.

"Our win against Seattle U. came pretty easily and helped us regain our focus after a tough loss the night before," Sullivan said.