Sunday, January 21, 2007

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (January 21, 2007) - The ETSU women's tennis team fell to the No. 12 Vanderbilt Commodores Sunday afternoon, 7-0 at the Currey Tennis Center. ETSU falls to 2-2 on the season while Vanderbilt improves to 2-0.

Vanderbilt took the early 1-0 lead as they swept all three doubles matches. Olya Batsula (Minsk, Belarus) and Tara Byrne (Johnson City, Tenn.) fell to the duo of Amanda Taylor and Caroline Ferrell, 8-5 in the first position, while Masha Ilina (Kyiv, Ukraine) and Yevgeniya Stupak (Kyiv, Ukraine) fell to Liberty Sveke and Courtney Ulery, 8-5 in the No. 2 position. In the No. 3 position Brittany Stewart (Nashville, Tenn.) and Vita Moskaliova (Minsk, Belarus) fell to Hannah Blatt and Taka Bertrand, 8-4.

The Commodores took the 5-0 advantage in singles plays, as junior Olya Batsula fell to No. 11 Amanda Taylor, 6-3, 6-0 in the No. 1 position, while Yevgeniya Stupak fell to No. 7 Taka Bertrand, 6-0, 6-3 in the No. 2 position.

In the No. 3 slot Tara Byrne fell to Courtney Ulery, 6-2, 6-4 as junior Elena Volobueva (Barcelona, Spain) fell to Liberty Sveke, 6-3, 6-3 in the No. 4 position.

Senior Masha Ilina and sophomore Vita Moskaliova extended their matches to three sets but fell to No. 9 Catherine Newman and Caroline Ferrell. Ilina fell to Newman, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the No. 4 position while Moskaliova fell to Ferrell, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3 in the No. 6 position.

"For the second day in a row we played for four hours. It's pretty good when we play a Top 20 team for that long. It just shows that we are getting better as a team," said head coach Steve Brooks. "Overall I was real happy with the way we played, we almost took away a couple of matches. Even though some of the scores don't show it we had a lot of game point opportunities that we just didn't convert on them. Hopefully we can get a little bit better at converting on them.

ETSU will continue their road-swing as they travel to Columbia, S.C. to take on the South Carolina Gamecocks. Follow all ETSU women's tennis action at www.etsubucs.com.

No. 12 Vanderbilt 7, ETSU 0

Singles

No. 1- No. 11 Amanda Taylor (VU) def. Olya Batsula (ETSU) 6-3, 6-0

No. 2- No. 7 Taka Bertrand (VU) def. Yevgeniya Stupak (ETSU) 6-0, 6-3

No. 3- Courtney Ulery (VU) def. Tara Byrne (ETSU) 6-2, 6-4

No. 4- No. 9 Catherine Newman (VU) def. Masha Ilina (ETSU) 3-6, 6-4, 6-3

No. 5- Liberty Sveke (VU) def. Elena Volobueva (ETSU) 6-3, 6-3

No. 6- Caroline Ferrell (VU) def. Vita Moskaliova (ETSU) 1-6, 6-1, 6-3

Doubles

No. 1- Taylor/Ferrell (VU) def. Byrne/Batsula (ETSU) 8-5

No. 2- Sveke/Ulery (VU) def. Stupak/Ilina (ETSU) 8-5

No. 3- Blatt/Bertrand (VU) def. Stewart/Moskaliova (ETSU) 8-4