The University of Akron Athletics
Tennis Debuts at Bowling Green Invitational
September 18 | Women's Tennis
- The University of Akron tennis team opens the fall portion of its schedule this weekend by competing in the BGSU Invitational on the campus of Bowling Green. The 10-team event will be held Saturday and Sunday, with competition scheduled to begin each day at 9 a.m. ET at Keefe Courts.
Along with the Zips and host Falcons, the field of competitors includes student-athletes from Cincinnati, Cleveland State, Detroit, Eastern Michigan, IPFW, IUPUI, Xavier and Youngstown State. Team scores will not be kept, but individual champions will be crowned at each of the nine singles and four doubles flights. For Akron, the weekend will provide a gauge for its dual-match schedule as the squad will face all but IPFW over the course of the spring as well.
"We are very excited to get the season started this weekend at BG," fourth-year Akron head coach Jeffrey Wyshner said. "It is a great tournament for us, since we will get to judge where we are compared to teams that we traditionally see every year during the dual-match component of our schedule."
UA is competing in the event for the fourth-straight season, and last year won flight 1 and 4 singles and flight 1 doubles. This year in singles, sophomore Zara Harutyunyan will compete in flight 1, freshman Angelina Jogasuria in flight 2, freshman Angelika Jogasuria in flight 3, freshman Prang Pantusart in flight 4, sophomore Anya Baronayte in flight 6, senior Jeremie Benjamin in flight 7 and junior Carolina Castro Cota in flight 8. Harutyunyan and Angelina Jogasuria will pair at flight 1 doubles, while Baronayte and Angelika Jogasuria will compete at flight 2 and the team of Benjamin and Pantusart will line up in the flight 3 bracket.
"With three freshmen and only one week of team practices, we are still a work in progress, especially in doubles where all three of our pairs will include a freshman," Wyshner said. "I'm certain there will be some nerves showing on Saturday morning, but I expect we will still play very well."
Wyshner's freshman class received praise during the spring by TennisRecruiting.net, being ranked third among mid-major programs and one of 11 teams nationally listed in the others receiving votes category in the top-25 balloting
The BGSU Invitational is the first of three tournaments Akron will compete in prior to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Midwest Regional on Oct. 22-27 in Evanston, Ill. The Zips' early season schedule includes traveling to the Spartan Invitational at Michigan State (Sept. 25-27) and the Wildcat Invitational at Northwestern (Oct. 9-11).
Harutyunyan, the reigning Mid-American Conference Player of the Year, has been selected to compete in the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships, to be held at The Riviera Tennis Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif., and on the campus of UCLA on Oct. 3-11. The Riviera/ITA All-American Championships is one of three national championship events for collegiate tennis, with the other two being the ITA National Indoor Championships and the NCAA Championships. She is the first-ever UA player to participate in the event.
Please click the link at the top of this article to download complete BGSU Invitational brackets.
Players Mentioned
