While the cool weather rolled into Houston, four women from the UH tennis team spent their weekend at the CCLR Collegiate Invitational in Little Rock, Ark.
There the team took on the challenge of being matched against the nation’s elite five ranked Intercollegiate Tennis Association schools.
The invitational started off fairly easy for the Cougars on Friday. In doubles, junior Maria Cardenas and sophomore Tina Rupert defeated Kansas in the first round with a score of 8-2.
Senior Elena Kordolaimi and her partner, sophomore Despoina Vogasari received a bye for the first round on Friday to take on Arkansas on Saturday. They beat Arkansas in the second round, 8-3, but fell to Ole Miss later that same day with a score of 8-6.
The CCLR Collegiate singles matchups show why Vogasari is the No. 1 seed for Houston.
Vogasari, the American Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year last season, took down Oklahoma State, No. 21 in the nation, in the first round. She continued her success against Mai El Kamash, winning 6-3 and 6-2.
On the final day of the invitational, double partners Cardenas and Rupert emerged victorious from an 8-7 tiebreak against Kansas.
Kordolaimi and Vogasari weren’t as successful as their teammates, as the duo fell 8-2 against their Oklahoma State counterparts after a hard-fought battle.
In her final singles matchup of the day, Vogasari played hard until the end where she would lose by a score of 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 against Arianne Hartono of Ole Miss in the marquee matchup of the weekend.
