Sports > September 18, 2008

By Gary Pasqualicchio | Contributing writer

The Wake Forest women’s tennis team served up a solid start to their 2008 campaign competing in the Georgia Invitational Sept. 12-14. Hosted by the No. 2 Lady Bulldogs in Athens, Ga., this prestigious tournament brought together some of the top women’s tennis programs in the country including No. 9 Duke, Indiana, Virginia, Ole Miss and TCU.

Junior Sasha Kulikova and senior Christian Tara both delivered victories over ranked opponents.

The first day of the Bulldog Invitational consisted of two rounds of doubles play in which three Wake Forest teams took part.

In the first round, the Lady Deacs started off with a win from Kulikova and sophomore Emilee Malvehy, who topped Karen Nijssen and Kristi Boxx from Ole Miss 9-7.

Completing the first round, Tara and senior Sierra Poske were defeated by Ole Miss’ Laura Van de Strout and Mimi Rennaudin 8-5.

Freshman Ryann Cutillo and sophomore Kat Reveche fell to Gaby Mastromarino and Kayla Duncan of TCU 8-4.

In the afternoon’s second round session, Kulikova and Malvehy lost 8-2 to No. 38 Monika Dancevic and Nadja Gilchrist from Georgia but were backed up by their teammates when the other two Lady Deacon teams defeated the Bulldogs.

Tara and Poske defeated Cameron Ellis and Naoko Ueshima 8-5 and Cutillo and Reveche topped Lara Fakhoury and Adriennce Elsberry 8-3.

After a solid 3-3 doubles record to open up the event, the Lady Deacs finished with two wins in 12 singles matches on day two.

The biggest win of the day for the Deacs was No. 50 Kulikova upsetting Georgia’s No. 33 Yvette Hyndman. Not only did Kulikova pull off the improbable win, she dominated Hyndman 6-2, 6-2 in straight sets. Wake played two more singles matches against Georgia, losing both.

Playing against Indiana for the first time in the tournament, Wake was led by Malvehy who came back from her doubles loss to win a three-set thriller. After losing the first set 6-4, Malvehy easily finished off Indiana’s Sigrid Fisher 6-2, 6-0.

Wake finished the day with six more singles matches against TCU and fellow ACC power Virginia, winning just two sets overall.

The third and final day of the Invitational Sept 14 featured doubles in the morning followed by two rounds of singles play in the afternoon.

The Lady Deacons picked up two wins in those six singles matches and lost a heartbreaking match in the doubles.

Reveche and Cutillo were defeated by Katariina Tuohimaa and Idunn Hertzberg of TCU 9-8 after losing a tiebreaker at 8-8.

However, Wake picked up a spot of revenge on the Horned Frogs later in the day led by Tara who took down No. 95 Anna Sydorska easily 6-2, 6-1.

In the final round of singles, in which the Deacs played host Georgia, No. 50 Kulikova picked up a win over the Bulldogs’ Chelsey Gullickson who retired due to injury after the first set.

Kulikova will head to Los Angeles for the ITA All-American Quality Tournament Sept. 27 to Oct. 1.