The UCLA women’s tennis team got its 2022-23 season underway with stops at a pair of tournaments, sending three Bruins each to the Intercollegiate Championships in San Diego and three others to the ITA All-American Championships in Cary, N.C.
UCLA was represented by junior Vanessa Ong, senior Sasha Vagramov and freshman Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer at Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego. Lutkemeyer made the singles semifinal round in her debut as a Bruin.
At Cary Tennis Park and across the Duke, University of North Carolina and NC State campuses, sophomores Ava Catanzarite and Kimmi Hance and freshman Fangran Tian each logged multiple singles wins. Fangran went 5-1 in her first appearance as a UCLA student-athlete, knocking off three nationally-ranked counterparts.
At the Intercollegiate Championships, Lutkemeyer, Ong and Vagramov each prevailed in her first match. Vagramov came back to defeat Kayla Meraz of Arizona before bowing out in three sets against Oklahoma State’s Alana Wolfberg. Ong beat Vanesa Suarez of Kansas State and San Diego State’s Dariya Destkovskaya, but was felled by eventual runner-up Claudia De Las Heras of the University of San Diego. After getting through the first round by way of walkover, Lutkemeyer took down Marisa Schmidt of Iowa and McKenna Koenig of USC. The Irvine, Calif. native dropped a three-set decision to tournament champion Sofia Rojas of Oklahoma State in a three-set semifinal.
In doubles, Ong and Vagramov knocked off Gloria Alogo Piqueras and Olivia Malm of North Texas before falling against Belen Nevenhoven and Lexi Ryngler of Arizona in the quarterfinals.
In the first national tournament of the campaign, Catanzarite, Fangran and No. 98 Hance each advanced through prequalifying. Catanzarite and Fangran logged three wins apiece. Fangran defeated No. 106 Laylo Bakhodirova of East Tennessee State 6-3, 6-0 in her debut, while Catanzairte also beat a ranked opponent, No. 116 Malkia Ngounoue of Kansas, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5 in the second round. Though Hance was stopped in her third match, she was awarded a lucky loser spot in the qualifying field.
Catanzarite’s run was snapped by No. 54 Patra Sedlackova of Alabama to start qualifying, while Fangran and Hance each finished one win short of the main draw. Fangran added to her résumé with victories against No. 71 Ava Markham of Wisconsin…
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