Tennis team looks impressive at Bucknell tourney

In the 10 days between the Pitt tennis team’s loss to Youngstown State and the Bucknell… In the 10 days between the Pitt tennis team’s loss to Youngstown State and the Bucknell Invitational, head coach George Dieffenbach stressed intensity. If the Panthers could come out strong and get a great start, he figured they could come away with a title in either singles or doubles play.

Let this be a lesson — Coach is always right.

The Panthers rolled over the competition at the Bucknell tournament, eclipsing Dieffenbach’s goal by winning not one, but three group titles.

Jill Williams, Emily Hughes and Michele Petrasko won singles titles in Flights B, C and D, respectively. Perhaps even more impressive was the fact that runners-up in each of these title matches were other Panthers.

In Flight-B action, Williams breezed through the first two rounds, then gutted out a 7-5, 2-6 (10-3) victory over Chelsea Mills of Bucknell in the semifinals to set up a showdown with fellow Panther Leah Friedman. Williams was able to knock off her freshman teammate 6-1, 6-0 to take the title.

With her 4-0 showing, Williams raised her all-time combined record (which includes both singles and doubles play) to 93-74. The record for victories by a Pitt player is 124, set by Fran Davis from 1994-98. Williams has two tournaments left in the fall season, and the entire spring season, beginning in January. This leads Dieffenbach to believe that she has a legitimate shot at raising the bar.

“If she can get near 100 this fall,” he said, “then going into the spring she’s got a real shot at breaking the record.”

Though Friedman lost the final match, her play is nothing to ignore. She finished the tournament 3-1, and has consistently been on the winning side of the court so far this year. This has not gone unnoticed.

“She’s winning close sets, showing a lot of maturity for a freshman,” Dieffenbach pointed out.

This weekend was a perfect example, as Friedman won a set by tiebreaker in each of her first two matches. The second, a 13-11 affair, which probably had fans thinking they were watching a replay of the classic Bjorg-McEnroe marathon at Wimbledon in 1980, showed just how resilient a player she is.

“She’s been putting up impressive numbers for her first year,” Dieffenbach explained. “I said to her that winning is a contagious thing, and if she keeps it up, it will give confidence to the entire team.”

That certainly seemed to be the case at Bucknell.

Overall, the Panthers posted a 25-6 record for the tournament. This becomes even more impressive when one takes into account that three of these losses came to other Pitt players.

Dieffenbach was especially encouraged by the victories over teams that the Panthers will face when Big East conference play begins this spring.

“We played very impressively against the better teams in the tournament,” he said.

Pitt was undefeated in matches against Villanova and Providence, the other two Big East schools at the Invitational, and they posted winning records against quality Bucknell and Duquesne teams.

The Flight C final pitted Hughes against teammate Carlie Smith. The two split the first two sets, but Hughes was able to outlast Smith in the super-tiebreaker to gain a 3-6, 6-3 (10-7) victory.

Freshman Petrasko won a straight-set, 7-5, 6-3 decision over Sotera Gacad-Cowan in the flight D championship.

The only flight Pitt was unable to capture featured strong play from the Panthers. Annie Davies fell to Bucknell’s Daniella Shtemberg in the first round, but did not lose another match on her way to a 3-1 record for the weekend.

Becky Emmers finished the tournament with one win and two losses, falling along the way to eventual Flight A champion Nada Curcic of Bucknell 6-3, 6-1.

The tournament was interrupted Saturday by rain, and, as a result, no doubles matches were played.

The Panthers return to competition this weekend at the Martha Thorn Invitational, hosted by West Virginia University.