BOLIVAR, Mo. – The McKendree University women's tennis team opened up play here Friday in the Southwest Baptist University Invitational held both SBU's John A. Bryant Tennis Center and Bolivar Middle School.
The Bearcats sent six players to the three-day event and on Friday's first day, the six Bearcat players posted a combined record of 2-5 overall, including a 1-3 record in singles and a 1-2 mark in doubles.
In the Women's 'A' Singles Draw, fifth-year senior
Manuela Barriga (Bogota, Colombia/Southeast Missouri State) had a first-round bye in singles and advances to Saturday's quarterfinal round.
The other two players in the 'A' Draw competing were junior
Camilla Fonseca (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil/Colegio Saber) and senior
Viola Cipriani (Arezzo, Italy/Liceo Classico Francesco Petrarca) and those two each lost their first-round matches as Fonseca fell 4-0, 4-0 to Harding's Karli Roux, while Cipriani fell 5-3, 1-4, 5-10 to Harding's Romane Britt.
In the Women's Singles 'B' Draw, the two Bearcat players that competed went 1-1, while a third, junior
Rhyan Cook (Pickerington, Ohio/Pickerington North) earned a first round and will play in the quarterfinals on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.
Along with Cook, junior
Maria Vitoria Salomao (Minas Gerais, Brazil/Belo Horizonte) picked up a win a walkover over Southwest Baptist's Giselle Garcia, while junior
Mariana Caicedo Mora (Cucuta, Colombia/American International School of Mallorca) fell 3-5, 4-5 (3) in the first round of SBU's Leticia Luiz.
Two of McKendree's three doubles teams played on Friday as Barriga teamed with Salomao and Cipriani was paired with Fonseca. The other doubles team competing is Cook and Caicedo Mora.
In doubles, Barriga and Salomao opened with an 8-7 (4) win in the first round over UMSL's team of Anna Domingo and Anna Favaron, before suffering an 8-2 quarterfinal loss to the No. 1 seeded team of Harding's Roux and Georgia Plunkett.
Cipriani and Fonseca earned a first-round bye, before suffering an 8-7 (4) loss in the quarterfinals to SBU's Ghada Dirninger and Lola Cincunegui.
The Southwest Baptist Invitational continues through Sunday, Sept. 11.
