Perez-Lopez Shines For Women's Tennis In SMU Invitational

[PonyPride]

From SMUMustangs.com:

Perez-Lopez Shines For Mustangs In SMU Invitational
Freshman sweeps singles matches, goes 2-1 in doubles

Oct. 11, 2015

DALLAS (SMU) – The SMU women’s tennis team welcomed a large group of teams to the SMU Tennis Complex over the weekend. The three Mustang doubles pairs and six of the singles competitors recorded a win over the weekend against opponents that came from 11 different schools.

Highlighting the weekend for SMU was the play of freshman Ana Perez-Lopez playing in her first competition for the Mustangs, who won the all of her singles matches, winning the Pony Singles Draw and going 2-1 in doubles with Dasha Sharapova. Perez-Lopez never dropped a set in all three of her singles matches and only lost four total games in four sets before beating UTA’s Jessica Birowski 6-4, 6-2.

The tournament started on Friday where the Mustangs went 7-3 overall in singles and doubles play. Macie Elliottand Mary Wright won their doubles match against Abilene Christian’s Hermsdorf and Walker 6-1, Perez-Lopez and Sharapova beat Sadiq and Kareh from Incarnate Word. In singles play, Vaszilisza Bulgakova defeated Sadiq 6-3, 6-3, Sharapova won her singles match against Lois Wagenvoort of UTEP 6-3, 7-6, Wright beat UTEP’s Matilda Tench 6-3, 6-2, Elliott defeated Louisiana Tech’s Yuchia Chen 6-1, 6-3 and Perez-Lopez beat Lauren Pineda 6-1, 6-1.

“I can’t say enough times how awesome it is to play home in our world-class facility in front of our home crowd,” head coach Kati Gyulai said. “Our level of professionalism, effort and attitude translated to a very successful week end for the team. Congratulations to Ana for winning her very first college tournament singles draw and for reaching the finals of the doubles draw with Dasha.”

SMU’s doubles pair of Bulgakova and Sharapova elevated their game after dropping their first doubles match, winning 6-2 over Stretton and Bago of Kansas State on Saturday and 6-4 over Zenovka and Kadzhaya of TCU on Sunday. Yana Erkeeva was dominant in her match on Sunday against Abilene Christian's Erin Walker by winning 6-1, 6-0 and after her first win, Elliott dropped a match against TCU’s Mia King but came back on Sunday to beat Daphne Visscher 6-1, 6-4.

“Overall we made improvements in all areas. I truly believe that we are headed toward something very special. We have to continue with the process,” Gyulai said.

The Mustangs will next compete at the ITA Regionals in College Station Texas starting Oct. 22 before they host their second tournament of the fall when they host the Blue and Red Challenge in early November.