Women's Tennis Weekly Release

Smaranda Stan

Bulls Defeat Akron 6-1; Clinch Second

The University at Buffalo women’s tennis team finished the regular season on Saturday with a 6-1 victory over Akron, one of the most complete team victories of the season. The Bulls won all three doubles matches and took five of the six contests in doubles. With the win, the Bulls clinched second place in this week’s MAC Tournament. The Bulls tied for second with Western Michigan with a 6-2 league record, but the Bulls claimed the tiebreaker with their head-to-head win over the Broncos.

Bulls Sweep Doubles

The Bulls got off to a quick start to the match sweeping the doubles point. The first doubles team of Denise Harijanto and Diana Popescu won their match 8-2 over Zara Harutyunyan and Anna Baronayte. The duo has now won 10 straight matches. The Bulls then clinched the point with a win at third singles. Smaranda Stan and Diana Toia combined for an 8-4 win over Jeremie Benjamin and Lindsey Berry. Completing the sweep was the second doubles squad of Anna Subenkova and Aleksandra Petrova who won their match 8-6 over Tanyaradzwa Gombera and Carolina Castro Cota.

UB Equally As Impressive In Singles

UB continued to dominate the contest winning four singles matches in a row. Toia was the first to finish at fourth singles as she defeated Benjamin, 6-1, 6-3. Subenkova then followed at six singles with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Castro Costa. Petrova clinched the match for the Bulls at fifth singles with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Kerry Langworthy. UB was not finished though as they took a 5-0 lead with a victory at second singles from Popescu as she defeated Baronayte, 6-4, 6-2. After Akron got on the board with a victory at first singles, the match was down to third singles where Stan was facing Gombera. Stan took the first set 6-2, but Gombera forced a third set by winning the second 6-4. Stan, who was playing in her final home match, did not allow an early 4-0 deficit in the third set stop her. She charged back, and down 5-3 she went on to win the next four games for the 7-5 victory.

Diana Popescu

Bulls Head To MAC Tournament

The Bulls will look to defend their MAC Title this week as they head to Bowling Green for the 2009 Mid-American Conference Championships. The Bulls enter the tournament as the number two seed and will play the seventh seed, Eastern Michigan in the quarterfinals on Friday at 2:00 pm. The winner will then play the Western Michigan-Akron winner in Saturday’s semifinal round. The tournament concludes with the championship game on Sunday afternoon at 1:00 pm.