Women's Tennis Opens at Spartan Invitational

Friday, September 25

East Lansing, MI

All Day

University of Louisville

Spartan Invitational

September 25, 2009 | Women's Tennis

Sept. 25, 2009

The University of Louisville women's tennis began fall play at the 20th annual Spartan Invitational at the Michigan State University Outdoor Tennis Courts, Friday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Sept. 27, with play beginning at 9 a.m. each day. The teams competing at the invitational will be Michigan State, Xavier, IPFW, Cleveland State, Miami of Ohio, Louisville, Toledo, Akron, Detroit and Evansville.

"I am really anxious to get things going this weekend," said U of L head coach Mark Beckham. "We have been practicing hard for a couple of weeks now and it will be good to see the team play matches against players from other schools. There are a lot of unknowns with this team, since six out of the nine players have never played in a Fall Tournament before. The four freshmen will get a chance to get some of the nerves out this weekend which will help them out quite a bit. I also have a couple of returning players that have really improved, so I am very interested to see how they compete with competition outside of their teammates.No matter how we do this weekend, the competition is going to really help us with our development. This team has some talent but they are so young, so every match they play will be very good for them as far as getting them better."

For the first day, the doubles pair of Kaysara Mandry and Louise Noe won their first two rounds beating pairs from Detroit Mercy and Miami in the Green Draw. Ashley Irvin and Gabi Duncan fell in both the first and second round. Jo-Ann Van Aerde and Mandy Brown combined to win their first two rounds as well.

In singles, Louise Noe, Kaysara Mandry and Gabi Duncan all advance out of the first round in the Blue Draw. Noe and Mandry both won in the second round in the Blue Draw as well.

In the Red Draw, Sarah Miller, Ashley Irvin both won their first round matches but lost their second round matchups.

In the White Draw, Stefanie Villajuan, Amelia Harris, and Mandy Brown all advanced out of the first round, with Brown and Harris surviving the second round as well.

Play continues Saturday morning at 9 a.m. in East Lansing.