Women's tennis tunes up at ACC Indoors

A few members of the women's tennis team had a warm-up to the spring season this past weekend in Chapel Hill at the Atlantic Coast Conference Indoors. Junior Karen O'Sullivan and sophomore Laura Zifer competed in the singles competition, while O'Sullivan teamed with junior Luanne Spadea in doubles.

Zifer finished third overall in the singles, defeating North Carolina's J.C. Babir Monday afternoon. Participating in her first match since the Rolex Qualifiers in the fall, Zifer had a difficult road to her final match. On Sunday, she participated in two consecutive singles matches.

"I really wished Laura would have played just one match [Sunday]," head coach Jody Hyden said. "The second match, she wasnt't feelng very well, and she just ran out of gas."

Zifer defeated Virginia's Paige Bufso in three sets in the first match Sunday. She then had only a 40-minute break before she faced UNC's Inga Commais. Zifer lost to her in another three-set match.

O'Sullivan lasted through two rounds before losing to Virginia's Ali Cohen in the third round.

Hyden was especially impressed with the efforts of the doubles team of Spadea and O' Sullivan. It was the first time the duo had teamed together on the court, and judging from their success, most likely will not be the last. Spadea and O'Sullivan pushed through to the finals, where they lost to UVa's Cohen and Jennifer Fiers.

"Since it was the first tournament Luanne and Karen had played together, we were pretty pleased with their performance," Hyden said.

Hyden added that the main reason he put Spadea and O'Sullivan together was the compatability of their styles of play. Spadea is more of a power player, while O'Sullivan plays with more finesse. Whatever the reason, Hyden's combination worked well.