The Saint Louis University tennis teams capped off their seasons
last weekend when the men picked up a 4-0 win in the consolation
round of the Conference USA Tournament, finishing the season ninth
in the league after blanking Charlotte. The women did not fare as
well, ending the season in 13th place after losing the consolation
round to the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
In Memphis, the doubles point was clinched after Tom de Larzac
and Thomas Kwong won the No. 1 doubles match against Charlotte’s
Arturo Aguirre and Jean-Michel Werk, and Lance Vodicka and Taylor
Curran won the No. 3 match 8-6 against Marlo Santoso and Jonathan
Venatachellum. Ikaika Jobe and Sanjeev Paramanathan were winning in
the No. 1 doubles slot, but did not finish the match since the
doubles point was already won with the other two victories.
“This weekend’s play was a tremendous testament of will and
character in our guys,” said coach Jonathan Zych in a press
release. “Everyone overcame some miscues from last weekend and
stood tall today. I was waiting for just one guy to step up, and
this weekend, the entire team stood like giants. Going
two-for-three against such great competition knowing we never lost
belief in ourselves is what coaching and teaching is all
about.”
Kwong turned in the first singles win at the No. 2 singles spot,
defeating Jonathan Clark in back-to-back 6-1 games. Curran turned
in the second singles point when he won the No. 6 match against
Stuart Lyons in a 6-4, 6-1 contest.
sealed the win for the Billikens when he went to three sets before
winning 6-2, 3-6, 6-4. De Larzac, Vodicka and Paramanathan did not
finish their matches since the win was already sealed.
Two of the seniors finished the season at .500 or better, with
Kwong finishing 15-15 and Vodicka 15-13, while Curran capped his
career with a 10-13 record, and Paramanathan ended 10-12.
At the women’s tournament in Louisville, the women were handed a
4-1 defeat by the hot-handed Blazers. Amanda Hellberg won the lone
Billiken point at the No. 2 singles slot, defeating Annemieke
Elsholz 6-2, 6-0.
“I think as a whole, we played well and with a lot of
confidence,” Steer said. “We had a tough draw, but we were pretty
evenly paired in the matches against Houston (in the first round of
the tournament) and UAB. We played UAB in a dual earlier in the
season and it was a close match.”
The Blazers won the doubles point by winning the No. 2 and No. 3
matches, while the No. 1 match did not finish since the point was
clinched.
In singles play, Melissa Cutler lost to Julia von Samson 6-1,
6-3 in the No. 4 position, while Rebecca Steer lost the No. 5 match
6-2, 6-0 to Nadia Dellarciprete. Samrin Tanzeem blanked Lindsay
Winninger to claim the No. 6 point, winning a pair of 6-0
games.
Katie Lozanova and Ana Renda did not finish the first and third
singles matches, respectively, since UAB locked away the win before
Lozanova capped off her 6-4, 5-1 lead.
“It’s kind of ironic, because you work up to the conference
tournament and then once you get there, there really is no such
thing as a long and grueling match; it goes pretty quickly,” Steer
said. “The hard part about Conference is that it goes so fast. As
soon as matches are clinched, you get pulled off the court. The
numbers or scores of those last matches don’t really tell the whole
truth. It may say that we lost 4-1, but if we had played out those
last matches, it probably could have been as close as 4-3, so it’s
a little deceiving.”
C-USA Season Results
Men’s team:
9-15, 0-4 in conference
Women’s team:
2-20, 0-4 in conference
