Sports > January 24, 2008
Women’s tennis caps strong preseason
Lead by sophmore Sasha Kulikova the Deacs finish the Virginia Invitational undefeated
By Donovan Carberry | Staff writer
The women’s tennis team headed to Charlottesville, Va. on Jan. 18 for the pre-season Virginia Invitational. They came out of the three days of competition undefeated.
click to enlarge
Sophomore Sasha Kulikova prepares to hit the ball during a match last year. Kulikova won both her singles and her doubles match in the pre-season Virginia Invitational Jan. 18. (Roger Kirkpatrick/Old Gold & Black)
Along the way they took out teams from Purdue and LSU along with ACC rival and home squad Virginia.
Sophomore standout Sasha Kulikova led the way with wins over Purdue senior Stephanie Wooten, LSU sophomore Staten Spencer and Virginia’s junior Amanda Rales in singles play.
Moscow native Kulikova than joined doubles partner Junior Alex Hirsch to beat Virginia’s Maggie Yahner and Amanda Rales (who Kulikova had already beaten in single play).
Especially impressive was the team’s dominance of Virginia, hopefully a preview of the season to come.
The Lady Deacs beat the Cavilers in the top four singles matches thanks to Kulikova, senior Jenna Loeb (who beat opponent Maggie Yahner in straight sets), junior Christian Tara and freshman Emilee Malvehy.
The invitational was also the debut of Wake sophomore Aileen Davis.
Davis is a name already familiar to Deacon fans due to her performance in field hockey this season where she earned all-American honors.
Davis took three singles wins in Charlottesville.
The team will return to the state of Virginia on Jan. 26 to start the dual match season at William and Mary.