Despite losing its captain to an injury, the Arizona women’s tennis team continued to succeed at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association West Regional in San Diego over the weekend.
Six members of the team traveled to the event, including No. 29 Danielle Steinberg, a sophomore, and the doubles team of senior Kasia Jakowlew and junior Camelia Todorova, who experienced the most success at the tournament by advancing to the main doubles draw semifinals.
UA head coach Vicky Maes said she was pleased with the performances she saw in the events and that the team is “”playing with more confidence and definitely a lot of heart.””
“”I think they could have had a little bit of a better result… but they looked a little intimidated.””
– Vicky Maes,
UA head coach
Steinberg, who had the No. 5 seed in the singles event, began Friday with a win against Esther Cadua of San Diego State, 6-1, 6-0.
She then had to withdraw from the tournament with an ankle injury sustained while playing against Cadua’s teammate, Holly Bragshaw, and losing 6-7(5), 7-6(5), retired.
“”I do feel that she would have gone far,”” Maes said. “”It’s just something that happens that was beyond our control.””
Though she’ll miss the remainder of the fall season, Steinberg should return to competition in the spring, according to Maes, who’s “”certain she’ll be around.””
Competing for the first time together, Jakowlew and Todorova fell in the semifinals to the USC duo of Anca Anastasiu and Julie Smekodub, 8-0.
The loss was the first of the tournament for the pair after stringing together a three-match winning streak.
“”I think they could have had a little bit of a better result (yesterday), but they looked a little intimidated,”” Maes said. “”That’s something that happens when we play a big school like USC.””
Maes added that the intimidation could be something the team needs to work on as a whole.
“”We definitely need to continue to work on getting our girls more comfortable when they’re playing teams in a tournament that are a little bit higher than we are,”” Maes said.
In the third round Friday, the duo defeated Silvia Gutierrez and Kanykey Koichumanova of Cal State-Northridge, 8-6. They continued to see success in the quarterfinals when they beat the UC-Santa Barbara duo of Charlotte Scatliffe and Marta Simi, 9-7.
But the duo’s teammates did not fare as well in the doubles event, as the other teams fell in the second round of competition.
Because of Steinberg’s injury, she and freshman Natalia Toporowska were forced to withdraw from competition after the second round, in which they defeated San Diego State duo Kathryn Kitts and Alesya Vidov, 8-2.
Sophomore Tina Razloznik and freshman Sydni Katz lost to the No. 5-seeded Judy DeVera and Amanda Fink of USC, 8-2, after earning a bye for the first round.
“”Overall, everybody did a really good job,”” Maes said. “”I’m just encouraged by how the girls played this week.””