Sooners Finish Three-Day Invitational

NORMAN, Okla. – The Oklahoma women's tennis team wrapped up the three-day OU Invite Sunday at the Headington Family Tennis Center.

Sophomore Malene Stripp and junior Ann Pepper started the day by winning their semifinal match, 6-3, over Alexis Pereira and Mia King of TCU to advance to the Red doubles draw final. The Sooners' tandem faced North Texas' Alexis Thoma and Kamilla Galieva, but fell, 6-4. Stripp/Pepper finished the weekend with three doubles victories.

“They were making good decisions and playing aggressively,” head coach Dave Mullins said of the Sooners' doubles play. “We understand how we need to play. Sometimes execution is off, sometimes it's on. But as long as the decision-making is good, then I'm happy.”

In the semifinals of the Crimson doubles draw, redshirt junior Mimi Fotopoulos and sophomore Christie Brigante lost, 6-2, to TCU's Caroline Wegner and Seda Arantekin. The pair won the Crimson bracket's third-place match, 6-3, over Maria Kononova and Tamuna Kutubidze of North Texas.

Senior Emma Devine and sophomore Simran Sethi fell to Texas Tech's Alex Valenstein and Lynn Kiro in the consolation finals, 6-3.

The Sooners added two wins on Sunday in singles actio with two straight-set wins from Fotopoulos and sophomore Brooke Winthrow.

“I thought today was a little better. We stung together the type of points we needed to play. We just didn't do it when it counts,” Mullins said, “We had a lot of opportunities to close out sets and close out matches and we didn't do it. We turn around quickly and play next weekend, so we'll see if we're doing better at the four-all, five-all, six-all games. When we got in those situations this weekend, we seemed to play some of our worse tennis. We played good when we were down, but not good when we were up.”

Fotopoulos wrapped up her weekend with a 1-1 record, and placed third in the Boomer consolation bracket. The third-place finish came with a win, 6-3, 6-1, over Yana Erkeeva of SMU on Sunday.

Stripp was the final Sooner off the court on Sunday. In an hour of play, she lost to Kamilla Galieva of North Texas in a tiebreaker to drop the first set. After a few well-placed returns, Stripp took two straight games to come within one in the second set, but ultimately fell 7-6 (5), 6-3.

The Sooners will continue play next weekend, with athletes spread between the ITA All-American in Los Angeles, Calif., and the Gamecock Invitational in Columbia, S.C.

No. 1 singles player and sophomore Lily Miyazaki will be in Los Angeles at the professional-level event.

“Every match out there is tough as to who gets in. It's very selective on the women's side,” Mullins said. “There are no easy matches. She needs to be ready to go from the first point.”