Women’s tennis ends UCF Invitational huge despite weather

The Georgia State women’s tennis team came out on top in 11 singles matches and four doubles rounds this past weekend during the UCF Invitational in Orlando, FL.

Rain met the team opening day Friday, but the Panthers were able to compete.

The Panthers’ Linn Timmermann and Krisitin Rehse finished the shortened day with the best score of the doubles match-ups at 8-3.

“Our line-ups were pretty good, we haven’t really gotten to choose our partners, so our coach [Jason Marshall] was just trying different combinations,” Marcia Tere-Apisah said.

Tere-Apisah did finish her doubles competition with a loss as she and Rehse fell 8-7 to UNF’s Quetzali Vasquez and Esther Zuniga, but won in singles against North Florida’s Luise Intert 7-6, 6-2.

Although the singles matches were not completed on opening day due to rain, they were set to resume on Saturday morning at 9 a.m.

Zimmerman, who came into the invitational with a 3-0 winning streak from the Georgia Tech Invitational, continued her streak with two straight winning sets, 6-1 and 6-0 in singles on day two.

The Panthers continued their pace on Saturday by winning five of the seven single matches, two of which were postponed due to severe weather.

Niriantsa Rasolomalala won two singles matches Sunday giving the Panthers their 11 singles victories.

Head coach Jason Marshall was pleased in their performance despite the weather effecting the rhythm and fluidity of the tournament.

“We had a great weekend of matches and I was really satisfied with our level of play,” Marshall said. “It is not easy with the rain delays to come out and continue matches. The main thing is that we finished the weekend better than we began with our quality of play.”

This was the second opportunity for head coach Jason Marshall to evaluate his players. According to Tere-Apisah, the team is also trying to adjust to the new head coach as well.

“It’s really different compared to the other coaches, we’ve only been with him a week really, so this has been our second tournament with him so were still getting used to things, but he’s doing good so far,” Tere-Apisah said.

The Panthers will compete next at Piedmont Park on Oct.10-12 for the Georgia State Invitational.