Jan. 20, 2013
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The No. 27 Purdue women's tennis team won both singles matches on Sunday in the Purdue Invitational. The Boilermakers topped Illinois-Chicago in all six singles matches and No. 65 DePaul in four of the six singles matches.
Claudia Escribens dominated her morning match against the Flames at No. 6. The Purdue freshman won the first 11 games over Keti Mebuke before settling for a 6-0, 6-1 victory. Classmate Krisztina Kapitany had similar performance at No. 4. The Hungarian topped Kathryn Sharples, 6-0, 6-2 in a match that lasted just over a half hour. The No. 80 singles player in the country Lynda Xepoleas picked up her first singles win of the spring with a victory at No. 1. The sophomore defeated Haley Craig, 6-3, 6-2.
Imogen Golder controlled her match at No. 5 against UIC. Golder beat Jana Knoppe 6-3 in the first set before hanging on to win the second set, 6-4. The No. 108 singles player in the country Mara Schmidt also picked up a win for Purdue. Schmidt, playing at No. 2 for the first time since her freshman season, knocked off Natalia Kuvakina, 6-1, 6-4. Daniela Vidal sealed the singles sweep with a win at No. 3. Vidal beat Palacios, 6-3, 6-4.
In the afternoon match, the Boilermakers had a much tougher test against a ranked DePaul team. Kapitany, however, picked up where she left off in the morning. The freshman picked up a ranked win over Jarret Fisher, the No. 119 ranked player in the country, by the score of 6-3, 6-0. The Blue Demons answered with a win at No. 1. Matea Cutura, the No. 112 player in the country, knocked off Xepoleas in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4.
Purdue got back on track with a win at No. 2. Schmidt took down Patricia Fargas, 6-2, 7-5, to give the Boilermakers the 2-1 edge. Again, DePaul would answer. Kelsey Lawson dropped the first set to Imogen Golder, 6-2, but responded in the second to get a 6-2 win of her own. Then in the third, Lawson topped the Boilermaker senior, 6-3.
The Boilermakers were able to pull out the final two matches, each in three sets. Vidal fought off a 7-6 first set setback to dominate the final two sets, 6-3, 6-3. Escribens wrapped up the 4-2 win with a 6-4, 6-7, 6-2.
The Boilermakers also beat both of those teams in doubles play which occurred on Saturday which would result in a pair of win if the matches occurred during the dual match season.
Purdue will wrap up the invitational with doubles and singles play against Illinois-Chicago on Monday. The Boilermakers and Flames are schedule to have four doubles teams face each other beginning at 9 a.m. ET. Singles play will follow at approximately 10 a.m. Live scoring, a live video feed of one court, as well as a live blog will be available on PurdueSports.com in the Game Day Central page.