FIU Tennis excels at UCF Quad Tournament

By Stefano Rivera/Contributing Writer

The Panthers’ Tennis team participated in their first event of 2015 at the UCF Quad Tournament in Orlando, Florida. They were one of four teams competing this past weekend including the University of Central Florida, the University of Iowa, and the University of Illinois.

The tournament was a success for the Panthers, as they went on to win the event on Monday Jan. 19 with twelve singles victories and five doubles wins.

The first day of the tournament was on Saturday Jan. 17, where the Panthers had six singles matches, all against Illinois. The team went on to win four out of the six matches. Yana Koroleva won 6-1, 6-4 against Alexis Casati, Carlotta Orlando won 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 against Melissa Kopinski, Nina Nagode won 6-2, 6-3 against Grace Tapak, and Kaitlin Brozovich won 6-3, 6-2 against Jade Hilton.

The team also competed against UCF that day in doubles matches. Nerma Caluk/Yana Koroleva won a close match that went into tiebreaker 7-6, (7-5) against Sofia Baptista/Cortney Cesarini, and Valentina Briceno/Kaitlin Brozovich won 6-4 against Annika Hepp/Monica Matias.

The first day turned out to be a success and the Panthers would look for a better outcome on Day Two of the tournament.

On Sunday Jan. 18, the Panthers played UCF in singles and ended up winning four out of the six matches as well. Koroleva won 6-2, 6-3 against Caroline Eberhart, Orlando won 6-1, 6-2 against Cesarini, Nagode won 6-2, 6-3 against Baptista, and Brozovich won 6-3, 6-3 against Clare Mendell. Caluk lost a nail biter 3-6, 7-6, 5-7 against Kennan Johnson. However, the singles got the job done on the second day of the event.

Once again, the Panthers’ doubles won two out of three matches, but this time against Iowa. Caluk/Koroleva won 7-5 against Annette Dohanics/Shelby Talcott, and Nagode/Orlando won decidedly 6-0 against Morven McCulloch/Anastasia Reimchen.

After having the same results two days in a row, the Panthers looked to be in a comfortable position going into the final day of the event.

On Sunday Jan. 19, the Panthers faced off against Iowa in singles. Winning four out of the six matches, the team proved to be too much for the Hawkeyes. Orlando won 6-2, 6-2 against McCulloch, Caluk won 6-3, 6-2 against Reimchen, Nagode won 3-6, 6-2, 10-6 against Dohanics, and Brozovich won 7-5, 5-7, 10-7 against Katie Zordani.

The Panthers fell short against Illinois in doubles, only winning one of the three matches. Nagode/Orlando won 6-3 against Casati/Tapak.

Overall, the Panthers beat every team they faced and finished tied with Illinois for the five doubles matches they won.

Orlando, Brozovich, and Nagode ended the tournament a perfect 3-0 in each of their three their singles matches. Collectively, they carried the load for the Panthers’ throughout the events.

The Panthers will look to use the victories they had in the UCF Quad Tournament as fuel for upcoming events.

The team will host its next two events against Liberty University and Stetson University before heading up to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to face the University of Pennsylvania.

They’ll look to ride this strong start all the way through the conference tournament in April .