Riviera/ITA All-American Championships Awaits The Frogs
10/1/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Oct. 1, 2004
The TCU women's tennis team will send four players to the sunny skies of California to compete in the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships from Oct. 2-10. Seniors Karla Mancinas and Story Tweedie-Yates, junior Helena Besovic and freshman Kewa Nichols will represent the Frogs at the Los Angeles Tennis Center and the Riviera Tennis Club.
The 2004 Riviera/ITA All-American Championships will feature over 60 schools from across the country. In the pre-qualifying tournament, 128-singles players and 64-doubles teams will compete in the largest field in the history of the event on Oct. 2-4 at UCLA. The top eight players and four doubles teams from the pre-qualifier will feed into the 64 singles/32 doubles qualifying tournament on Oct. 5-6.
From there, the top eight singles and four doubles teams will move on to the 32 singles/16 doubles main draw on Oct. 7-10. The main draw will feature 22 of the top 25 players in the ITA singles rankings. The qualifier and main draw will take place at the Riviera Tennis Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif.
Mancinas, Besovic and Nichols will be start things off for the Frogs when they compete in the singles pre-qualifier on Saturday morning. Besovic, who drew the No. 15 seed in the 128-player field, will meet up with Tapiwa Marabela of Florida State in her first match. This weekend will be the first competition for Besovic since the Baylor Invitational when she defeated No. 20 Petra Dizdar of Texas and No. 58 Blair DiSesa of Rice.
Mancinas will square off against Virginia Tomantis of Mississippi and Nichols will face Lolita Frangulyan of Florida in their opening matches. Mancinas has a 0-3 record on the season after competing in the Matamoros Tournament and the Baylor Invitational, while Nichols has an even 2-2 record after four matches in Waco.
Mancinas and Besovic will also team up in the doubles pre-qualifying tournament. In their opening match, the pair will face Miranda Foley and Marabello of Florida State. At Baylor, they won a pair of match to advance to the semifinals of the Flight A Doubles on Sept. 18.
Meanwhile, Tweedie-Yates will compete in the qualifying tournament on Oct. 5-6. The draw for this field will be announced on Oct. 2. In her last competition, Tweedie-Yates won five matches to claim the title at the Matamoros Tournament on Sept. 13-19. It was the first time in her career that she has won a professional event.
Players Mentioned
