BATON ROUGE, La. – Members of Mississippi State’s women’s tennis team are looking to make their mark over the next few days in their third tournament of the fall.
The Bulldogs sent all ten members to Baton Rouge to take part in the ITA Southern Regional from Oct. 13-18. The tournament on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will begin at 9 a.m. CT, while Sunday, Monday and Tuesday play will begin at 10 a.m.
“This will be the first tournament ten of our girls are entered,” head coach Daryl Greenan said. “Our favorite part is being able to get out there to compete and seeing where we are at. I am really excited to see what they can do.”
Singles qualifying for the ITA Southern Regional starts on Thursday with graduate Maddie Bemisderfer taking on Alabama’s Ansley Cheshire. Senior Maddie McKee squares off with Paige Wise of Northwestern State. Freshman Sydney Hrehor battles Dariana Prato of Jacksonville State.
Six other Bulldogs automatically received bids to the main draw, in which five have first round byes. No. 52 Emmanouela Antonaki, Maria Rizzolo, Alessia Tagliente, Gia Cohen, Dharani Niroshan and Alexandra Mikhailuk all skipped ahead to the second round while sophomore Emily Surcey faces Hagar Ramadan of Troy in the first.
MSU will also compete in doubles during the tournament with McKee and Hrehor facing Olivia Elliott and Andrea Widing of Troy in the qualifying round. The tandem of Antonaki and Cohen received a bye and will automatically move to the second round as well as Rizzolo and Mikhailuk.
The duo of Niroshan and Surcey will take on the tandem of Brooke Theis and Kristen Borland of Tulane. Bemisderfer and Tagliente will also take part in the first round of the double’s main draw.
“We are curious to see how the doubles matchups go, because we have switched a few things around,” Greenan said. “We feel like every team we have has great potential. The pairs we have could beat anybody at any time. They have shown it in practice, and we will see what happens.”
For more information on the Bulldog women’s tennis program, visit HailState.com or search for “HailStateWT” on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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