'Cats Continue Winning Ways to Close Weekend Action

1/16/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis

Jan. 16, 2011

Site: Evanston, Ill. (Combe Tennis Center)
Event: Wildcat Invitational -- Day Two
Next NU Event: Friday, Jan. 21 at Vanderbilt • Nashville, Tenn. •2:30 p.m. CT
Wildcat Invitational -- Final Results

EVANSTON, Ill. -- In its final tune-up before officially beginning its dual season at Vanderbilt Friday, Northwestern continued its weekend-long trend of dominating the opposition, sweeping three doubles and six singles matches to finish the Wildcat Invitational Sunday.

"Overall I'd say I'm very pleased with the way we played, you never quite know what to expect when you're facing someone in a different color uniform for the first time in over two months," said 13th-year head coach Claire Pollard. "We need to get a bit tougher mentally and physically but we're certainly in a good place for our first dual next weekend."

Following the Sunday morning session, Northwestern freshman Belinda Niu was named the individual singles champion of the round-robin tournament thanks to a 3-0 record with only 10 cumulative games lost. On the doubles side, NU sophomores Brittany Wowchuk and Kate Turvy were tabbed as tournament champions by virtue of their 4-0 mark together and just seven total games surrendered.

Niu's final win of the weekend came Sunday in a 6-4, 6-2 decision against UIC's Elisa Simonetti, while Wowchuk and Turvy completed their perfect weekend by blanking the Flames' Kathryn Sharples and Jana Knoppe, 8-0.

In other action, Wowchuk finished up a strong series of singles matches this weekend with a 6-3, 6-0 defeat of UIC's Mariya Kovaleva while fellow sophomore Linda Abu Mushrefova persevered against Knoppe after surrendering a second set, winning the decisive third 6-3. Abu Mushrefova also won all three of her singles matches over the three-day span.

Freshman Wildcat Natalie Edell picked up her second victory of the tournament, winning in a third-set super tiebreaker, 10-8, against UIC's Linda Hricistova.

A complete list of Northwestern's Sunday results is below, and outcomes from the entire weekend are available by downloading the PDF linked at the top of the page.

Sunday Results
Doubles:
Abu Mushrefova/Hamilton (NU) def. Milinkovic/McKnight (DEP), 8-3
Mosolova/Chernyakova (NU) def. Brito/Maisak (FIU), 8-3
Turvy/Wowchuk (NU) def. Sharples/Knoppe (UIC), 8-0

Singles:
Brittany Wowchuk (NU) def. Mariya Kovaleva (UIC), 6-3, 6-0
Belinda Niu (NU) def. Elisa Simonetti (UIC), 6-4, 6-2
Kate Turvy (NU) def. Teona Tsertsvadze (UIC), 6-3, 6-1
Nida Hamilton (NU) def. Kathryn Sharples (UIC), 6-4, 6-3
Linda Abu Mushrefova (NU) def. Jana Knoppe (UIC), 6-3, 6-7, 6-3
Natalie Edell (NU) def. Linda Hricistova (UIC), 6-2, 2-6, 1-0 (10-8)

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