Dannhauser (left) and Rees (right) compete in doubles Sept. 19
Courtesy | Elaine Kutas
Every Hillsdale women’s tennis player won at least one match each at the Davenport Invite, Sept. 25-26 hosted by Grand Rapids’ Davenport University.
Junior Emma Palus and sophomore Sydney Singh won all three of their singles matches and senior Ané Dannhauser and junior Briana Rees swept their three doubles matches.
Dannhauser and Rees went into the weekend as Hillsdale’s top doubles team and came away undefeated, winning the A doubles flight title with two wins against Davenport teams and one against a team from Northwood University. Individually, Dannhauser beat two of her three opponents in singles, winning 6-1 in both matches, while Rees won one of her singles matches.
“Everyone came out extremely strong and we were able to build on the momentum from the weekend before,” Dannhauser said. “The team did a better job at playing one point at a time and not letting any negative results affect the rest of the weekend.”
Beyond her undefeated three singles matches, Palus won two of her three doubles matches with partner junior Julia Zlateva, winning two tiebreaks to beat teams from Northwood and Davenport. Singh said that last week she struggled on the court but this weekend’s competition went better because of her attitude. She said she’s looking forward to the matches this coming week.
“I’m mostly just trying to have that same energy as our last tournament and just really try my best to stay competitive the entire weekend,” Singh said. “I definitely still want to be as supportive as I can for my teammates and for myself.”
Head coach Melanie Zampardo said the team played excellently thanks to good weather and it being their second competition, so they already had a chance to get nerves out of the way with earlier competitions. She said Zlateva stood out this week.
“We name a teammate of the week on the team and Julia won that this week,” Zampardo said. “Mainly because of her perseverance from really not feeling great about her game at the first invite, but continuing to work through it and then to this past invite at Davenport. She was playing incredible.”
Freshman Addison Trotter got her first wins of the season, two against Northwood players and made the final of the C singles draw with her wins. Freshman Emily Muresan had a B flight victory against a player from Purdue University Northwest.
“The freshmen are doing great,” Zampardo said. “They’ve been playing doubles together. It’s definitely a shock for them. They’ve never really played doubles before, either of them, and so throwing two freshmen together who’ve never really played that before has been fun to see them work it out.”
The team will next compete at the ITA Midwest Regional in Grand Rapids beginning Oct. 10. This is the final competition of the fall season, and according to Zampardo, is what they work for all fall.
