State Closes Out Regular Season With 6-1 Loss To No. 49 Mississippi
STARKVILLE, Miss. ?€“ Mississippi State's women's tennis team closed out the 2006 regular season with a 6-1 loss on the home courts to 49th-ranked Mississippi on Saturday. With the loss, MSU will be the 11th seed in upcoming 2006 Southeastern Conference Women's Tennis Championships this week in Gainesville, Fla.
MSU's Tatiana Feit reeled in the squad's only point of the afternoon by dropping Lady Rebel Virginia Tomatis 6-1, 6-2 in the fifth spot in the line up. Feit has won two of her last three SEC match ups over the past two weekends of competition.
UM opened the match by sweeping all three doubles matches. The Red and Blue clinched the match between the two in-state rivals at the No. 1 position. UM's Kessnia Tokarieva, ranked 108th in the country, topped Lady Bulldog Renee Joseph 6-2, 6-3. Ilona Somers picked up a win over MSU's Martina Banikova 6-0, 6-2 on court two, while Lady Rebel Nika Koukhartchouk dropped the opening set to State's Daniela Juskova 7-6(6), but Juskova retired at the beginning of the second set. MState freshman Elna de Villiers match went three sets with UM's Preethi Subramanian. De Villiers took the first set 7-5, but fell 6-0, 10-7 in the next two sets.
The bracket for the 2006 SEC Women's Tennis Championship will be announced Saturday night or Sunday by the league office after all of the weekend's competition has concluded. The bracket will be available on the official web site of the SEC at www.SECSports.com. Competition will get underway on the University of Florida campus on Thursday, April 20.
Doubles
1. No. 55 Ilona Somers/Virginia Tomatis (UM( def. Martina Banikova/Elna de Villiers (MSU) 8-1
2. Nika Koukhartchouk/Kseenia Tokarieva (UM) def. Tatiana Feit/Renee Joseph (MSU) 8-3
3. Carlin Cochran/Preethi Subramanian (UM) won by default
Singles
1. No. 108 Kseenia Tokarieva (UM) def. Renee Joseph (MSU) 6-2, 6-3
2. Ilona Somers (UM) def. Martina Banikova (MSU) 6-0, 6-2
3. Nika Koukhartchouk (UM) def. Daniela Juskova (MSU) 6-7(6), ret.
4. Preethi Subramanian (UM) def. Elna de Villiers (MSU) 5-7, 6-0, 10-7
5. Tatiana Feit (MSU) def. Virginia Tomatis (UM) 6-1, 6-2
6. Mimi Renaudin won by default