Jan. 20, 2012
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Purdue women's tennis team kicked off its season on Friday afternoon in the first day of the three-day Yale Invite. The Boilermakers swept all four doubles matches against Auburn before splitting singles with No. 30 Yale.
In the first match of the hidden dual, the Boilermakers faced Auburn in doubles. Jennifer Rabot and Mara Schmidt took take of No. 1 doubles with a near perfect performance, topping Jen Pfeifler and Paulina Schippers, 8-1. At No. 2, juniors Imogen Golder and Gisella Pere were dominant and put together an 8-4 victory. The Boilermaker freshmen were tremendous in their first spring match at Purdue as they blanked Jackie Kasler and Taylor Schreimann at No. 3, 8-0. In the No. 4 match, Anna Dushkina and Kay Kay Magi completed the sweep with an 8-2 triumph.
Following the doubles sweep, the Boilermakers stayed on the court to face Yale in singles. At No. 1, Rabot fell in a close defeat at the hand of Elizabeth Epstein, 6-7(5), 6-4, 2-6. Xepoleas got things rolling for the Boilermakers as she wrapped up her first day in the same impressive manner she started the day, knocking off Blair Seideman, 6-1, 6-2, at No. 2. Schmidt gave the Boilermakers an edge after completing a tough victory at No. 3, 7-6 (3), 6-2, over Vicky Brook. At No. 4, Vidal fell to Annie Sullivan, 5-7, 3-6.
At No. 5, Pere was back and forth with Steph Kent before falling in a tight match, 4-6, 4-6. Dushkina leveled the match at three with a win at No. 6 over Amber Li, 6-3, 6-3. Golder won the final match of the day for Purdue at No. 7, 6-2, 6-2, before Magi fell at No. 8, 2-6, 2-6.
The invitational works on a scoring basis in both singles and doubles. In singles, points are awarded to the winner in reverse order of the position in which a player competed, eight points for No. 1, seven for No. 2, and so on. In doubles, the scoring is the same, four points for the winner at No. 1, three at No. 2, two at No. 3, and one for the victor in No. 4.
Xepoleas and Schmidt are the top two scoring singles players for Purdue with seven and six points, respectively. Schmidt and Rabot are tied for the doubles lead with four total points.
The Boilermakers continue the invite on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. with a singles match against No. 22 Tulsa. Following that match, Purdue faces Yale in doubles at 1 p.m. Tulsa took seven of eight singles matches against Auburn on Friday while Yale split doubles with Tulsa.