The first day of the Thunderbird Invitational didn’t go exactly the way women’s tennis coach Sheila McInerney would have wanted.
Only two of the Sun Devils' six players are still in contention in the championship draw.
“Overall, as a team, I would say I was a bit disappointed,” McInerney said. “I don’t think we played as well as we probably could have in some of the matches. Overall I think two of the kids played really well the other kids sort of need to step it up tomorrow a little bit I’d say.”
Only two Sun Devils advanced to the quarterfinals: junior Leighann Sahagun and sophomore Stephanie Vlad.
Vlad made her matches look easy, first beating BYU junior Moragn Anderson 6-2, 6-0 and then Cal senior Kelly Chui 6-3, 6-3.
“The scores were easy but the matches weren’t,” Vlad said. “Both of them were very competitive and I felt like I was being really stingy today with my points so it went in my favor.”
Sahagun also won her first two matches but they weren’t as decisive as Vlad’s. Sahagun cruised in her first match against Kansas State freshman Iva Bago 6-2, 6-1 before having a true battle on her hands against Michigan freshman Laura Ucross.
Sahagun controlled the first set against Ucross, winning it 6-1, but the second set would be a different story as Ucross became more aggressive.
“She was taking my balls a lot earlier,” Sahagun said. “Instead of me returning and then having a little bit of time (to react), she’d kind of pounce on it really quickly so that kind of got me out of position a lot of times.”
Eventually, Sahagun would punch her ticket to the quarterfinals by winning her second set over Ucross 7-6 (3) in a tiebreak.
While Sahagun and Vlad shined, the rest of the Sun Devils struggled.
Junior Joanna Smith and freshmen Gussie O’Sullivan and Kassidy Jump were eliminated in the first round of the championship draw. Sophomore Desirae Krawczyk went down in the second round of the championship draw.
Making things worse for ASU were minor injuries to Krawczy and O’Sullivan.
Krawczyk had to retire from her second round match due to leg cramping while O’Sullivan was unable to continue also due to cramping after a marathon three-hour match.
“(O'Sullivan), she plays log matches, she had a three and a half hour singles match” McInerney said. “We gotta sort of figure out her a little bit because it’s something that’s a little bit in her history.”
Doubles Continuing to Improve
The Sun Devils won two of their three doubles matches in the first day of the Thunderbird Invitational.
The pairings of Vlad/Smith and O’Sullivan/Krawczyk won their matches 8-7 (10-8) and 8-2 respectively. Sahagun/Jump lost their match 5-8.
“I thought we played pretty well in the doubles today,” McInerney said. “a lot of time in doiubles you don’t worry about the winning and losing, a lot of new teams are playing together.
At this point the winning and losing in the doubles isn’t as big of a concern as making sure they’re getting the returns in, serving to the right spot, doing things like that. Overall I thought the doubles was good.”
Reach the reporter at ejsmith7@asu.edu or follow him on twitter @EricSmith_SP