April 24, 2005

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Southeastern Louisiana earned its first trip to the NCAA Women's Tennis Championships with a convincing 4-0 win over defending champion Texas-Arlington in the finals of the 2005 Southland Conference Tennis Championships here Sunday afternoon.

SLU (19-6) won its 11th consecutive match dating back to a conference-opening loss to UTA. UTA ends its season 11-11. SLU become the fourth different SLC representative at the tournament in the past four years. UTA (2004), Louisiana-Monroe (2003) and Texas-San Antonio (2002) have been the past three conference qualifiers into the NCAA Tournament.

SLU opened the day by winning the doubles point with wins at Nos. 1 and 2 doubles. Nina Knaus and Breda Kovac defeated Pavla Mesterova and Daniela Novokova 8-3 at No. 1. Emilja Arnauidovska and Zdenka Puflerova outlasted Simri van Rooyen and Gretel Hach 8-4.

In singles play, SLU took a quick 2-0 lead aftera Jana Simurkova defeated Novokova 6-2, 6-2.

Bonnie Phillips defeated Jessica Shepard at the No. 6 spot in just more than one hour, 6-1, 6-4. SLU clinched the title when Knaus broke Anete Rozklne in the first game of Game 2 to take a 1-0 lead. Rozkalne rebounded to tie the set at 4-4, but Knaus held serve for a 5-4 lead and then won four of five points in the decisive game for a 6-4, 6-4 victory.

- utamavs.com-