Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern
Michigan
No. 6 Northwestern Downs No. 24 Michigan, 5-2
2/23/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Feb. 23, 2007
Results
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Sixth-ranked Northwestern was tested on the road, but critical singles wins by Lauren Lui (Houston, Texas/Kinkaid) and Nazlie Ghazal (Temecula, Calif./Chaparral) powered the 'Cats past 24th-ranked Michigan Friday, 5-2.
The win improves Northwestern to 7-3, 2-0 in the Big Ten. Michigan falls to 3-3, 0-1 in conference.
Northwestern's sweep of doubles was led by a dominating performance by the seventh-ranked pair of Georgia Rose (Mettawa, Ill./North Shore Country Day) and Alexis Prousis (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest). The duo topped Michigan's Kara Delicata and Jenny Kuehn, 8-1. The 'Cats broke to go up 1-0, added another break for 3-0 and cruised to victory.
The Wildcats clinched the doubles point when Alexis Conill (Fort Lauderdale, Fla./Cardinal Gibbons) and Samantha Murray (Altrincham, Eng./Altrincham) downed Allie Shafner and Chisako Sugiyama, 8-4, at No. 3 doubles. The pair was up a break at 6-3, but got broken to make the score 6-4. They shut the door with a break for 7-4 and held serve to take the 8-4 win.
At No. 2, Keri Robison (Decatur, Ill./Keystone National) and Lui surrendered a break to make the score 6-6 in their eight-gamer, but the pair broke back for 7-6 and held serve to take the 8-6 win over Lindsey Howard and Elizabeth Exon.
Rose, the nation's 13th-ranked singles player, gave the 'Cats a 2-0 lead when she knocked off 43rd-ranked Jenny Kuehn in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1. The win is Rose's fifth-straight over a top-50 opponent. She has not been pushed to a third set in any of those wins.
Michigan took matches at No. 2 and No. 5 to tie the score at 2-2. The 19th-ranked Murray fell to 49th-ranked Chisako Sugiyama at No. 2, 6-3, 6-3. Robison fell in her No. 5 singles match to Tania Mahtani, 7-5, 6-4.
Lui, ranked 78th, found herself down 5-2 in the first set of her match against Kara Delicata, but the freshman put the pedal down and took the next 11 games to win in straight sets, 7-5, 6-0.
Ghazal clinched the dual with a straight-set win at No. 6. The sophomore downed Allie Shafner, 7-6, 6-2.
Prousis needed a third-set "superbreaker" to win her match over Elizabeth Exon at No. 3 singles, 6-7 (6), 6-4, 1-0 (8). The win by Prousis made the final score 5-2 in favor of the Wildcats
The 'Cats return to action at 4 p.m. Saturday at Penn State.
