The men’s and women’s tennis teams finished their individual seasons last weekend at the Grand Canyon University Invitational in Glendale, Arizona.
The furthest an ACU male player went in the singles tournament was second place in the consolation bracket of the tournament’s highest flight. Guilherme Gesser, senior from Florianopolis, Brazil, lost 6-4, 6-2 to Poustie of Nevada in his first match, but would go undefeated until losing to Fumagalli of USAFA in the flight’s consolation finals, 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.
In Flight 3, Paul Domanski, freshman from New Braunfels, and Marco Bensley, junior from Stellenbosch, South Africa, reached finals in the singles bracket but decided to face different opponents on the last day instead of each other, both losing their respective matches against their opponents.
At the same time, Brad Gleason, freshman from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, won the Flight 3 consolation championship, defeating GCU’s Ounanian, 7-6, 6-2.
The men struggled in doubles play but managed to rack up a few wins, including the 1-1 records of both duos of Gesser and sophomore Nico Agritelley and freshman Henry Adams and junior Jason Proctor.
The women’s team had no such problems.
Freshman Whitney Williams and sophomore Erin Walker combined to win the women’s doubles championship of the tournament. After a first round bye, the twosome went 3-0, defeating the doubles pair of Prudhomme and Annoual, the winner of the women’s Flight 1 singles tournament, of GCU in the final match, 8-5.
Junior Kaysie Hermsdorf and senior Brittney Reed teamed up to go 3-1 in the tournament, with their only loss coming in the semifinals of the invitational against Prudhomme/Annoual, 8-5.
The women were also able to get it done on the court in the singles tournament, including a strong performance by Williams, who took the Flight 2 women’s singles championship, 6-1, 7-6(3), over Petrzalkova of GCU.
Freshman Carli Knezevich and sophomore Ansley Boarman also showed up to play, tying for the consolation Flight 2 championship and won both of their final individual matches, with Knezevich winning against Joyce of NMSU, 6-3, 6-1 and Boarman winning 2-6, 6-2, 10-6 over GCU’s Rinaldi.
Both tennis teams will look to build off this tournament and their offseason individual season performances as a whole as they look to help the team compete in 2015 when the official team season starts next semester.
