Mississippi State’s women’s tennis team took the stage in Los Angeles, Calif., for the Riviera/ITA Women’s All-American Championships .
For the lady netters, prequalies began Saturday with four women slated to compete for MSU. Zsuzsanna Fodor, Rene Joseph, Anastasia Kugakolova and Tarryn Rudman all took the court.
In women’s prequalifying, players must win four singles matches to reach the Oct. 5-6 qualifying tournament. In qualifying, players must win three more matches to reach the Oct. 7-10 Main Draw. Once a player loses in pre-qualifying rounds, they are out of the tournament.
In pre-qualifying doubles, players must win four matches to qualifying. Teams with a first round bye in the tournament must win three matches. As in singles, teams must win three more matches in qualifying to reach the Main Draw. Eight singles players and four doubles teams will advance to the qualifying tournament.
Fodor advanced to the fourth round of the prequalifying event, after defeating Tracy Lin of UCLA, 6-4, 6-1, in the second round. She defeated USC’s Lindsey Nelson in the third round in a 6-2, 6-4 decision. Fodor played 105th-ranked Maria Rosenberg of Kansas State in the final round Monday.
Rudman won her match against Nicole Shabaz of Cal Poly in the second round, 6-7(1), 6-1, 6-1. She fell victim to Duke’s 96th-ranked Saras Arasu in the third round 6-2, 6-3. Kugakolova dropped her second round match to Hillary Mintz of Iowa, 6-3, 6-2.
State’s Fodor and Kugakolova defeated Sainz and Winterhalter of Fresno 8-6 in the second round.
The Lady Dawg duo will face Matias and Nelson of USC in their next match Monday.
State’s lone elimination, Joseph, lost to Harvard’s Elisa O’Riain. Although Joseph battled hard, she fell 6-4, 7-5.