Sooners Complete Day 1 of the OU Fall Invite

NORMAN, Okla. -- The Oklahoma women's tennis team concluded the first day of the OU Fall Invite Friday at the Headington Family Tennis Center with a combined 4-1 record in doubles play, including a 3-0 mark in the first round.

In the Red doubles draw, sophomores Malene Stripp and Brooke Winthrow advanced to the semifinals after defeating Abby Stevens and Tanaporn Thongsing of Wichita State, 6-0.

Redshirt junior Mimi Fotopoulos and sophomore Christie Brigante won their first round doubles match, 6-3, over North Texas's Anastasiya Shestakova and Agustina Valenzuela. The pair also won their quarterfinal match, 6-2, against Rebecca Pedrazzi and Aleksandra Trifunovic of Wichita State. Fotopoulos/Brigante will play in the semifinals of the Crimson draw on Sunday.

Senior Emma Devine and sophomore Simran Sethi defeated Macie Elliott and Mary Wright of SMU, 6-2. The tandem lost their quarterfinal match, 6-2, to North Texas's Maria Kononova and Tamuna Kutubidze.

“I was really happy with doubles,” head coach Dave Mullins said. “We've made big strides and improvements in that area, so I was thrilled with that.”

The Sooners also posted a 3-4 record in singles play to begin the three-day event.

Sethi will play Sara Castellano in the singles quarterfinals of the Boomer draw. Sethi was the first to finish her first singles match, beating SMU's Yana Erkeeva 6-0, 6-4. She was one of three Sooners who won their singles matches Friday.

Mullins hopes to see improvements in singles throughout the weekend.

“In singles, some of them did a really good job implementing things we've been working on in practice and some of them didn't. That's really my concern right now – how to bring our practice level on to the match court. I believe we can progress as we see more of that.”

Fotopoulos (Boomer Draw) and North Texas's Tamuna Kutubidze battled for nearly three hours in their first singles match of the weekend. Fotopoulos took the first set, 6-2, but was defeated in a second-set tiebreaker. In the final set, Kutubidze came back from two games down to win the deciding set.

“Mimi is going to play a lot of matches like that throughout the years. It's her first match in over a year, maybe longer,” Mullins said. “In terms of how she conducted herself, she did outstanding.”

Play will resume Saturday at 9 a.m. with two rounds of singles in each draw. The final two rounds of doubles and the final round of singles will be played on Sunday.