March 29, 2009
EVANSTON, Ill. -- No. 1 Northwestern squared off against the second-place team in the Big Ten Sunday and left no doubt as to which program still reigns supreme in the conference, winning at No. 16 Michigan 6-1. The Wildcats, who have won 10 consecutive Big Ten championships under head coach Claire Pollard, extended their dual match winning streak in the league to 69.
The win snapped Michigan's 24-match home winning streak.
NU returns to Evanston next weekend for a showdown with third-ranked Notre Dame at noon on Saturday before hosting Purdue on Sunday.
Northwestern (15-1, 5-0) sped to a pair of 8-1 wins at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles Sunday to lock up a 1-0 advantage in advance of singles play. Senior Keri Robison and sophomore Maria Mosolova, ranked 59th nationally, took a 2-1 lead on Lindsey Howard and Denise Muresan before reeling off the next six games to win 8-1. The Wildcat tandem improved their dual match record this season to 12-2.
Junior Samantha Murray and freshman Elena Chernyakova enjoyed similar success against Rika Tatsuno and Michelle Sulahian, racing to a 3-0 lead before slamming the door on their 8-1 win.
NU's lone doubles setback was at the No. 1 spot, where Georgia Rose and Lauren Lui went up a break in the second game and maintained a lead through much of the match until their opponents, Chisako Sugiyama and Tania Mahtani, pulled even late in the contest. With the doubles point already decided, the match entered a tiebreaker game where the Wolverines came out on top, 7-4, to take an 8-7 decision in the match.
In singles action, Nazlie Ghazal was as efficient as ever in her match at the No. 5 spot, particularly in the second set where she broke Lindsey Howard's serve three times en route to 5-0 lead. Her 6-4, 6-0 match win improved her dual record this year to 13-1.
At her No. 1 singles match, Mosolova led 4-3 in the first set against the reigning Big Ten Player of the Week, Rika Tatsuna, but trailed in her service game 30-0. Mosolova rallied to win the game, however, and broke Tatsuna's serve in the ensuing game to take the first set 6-3. She then went up a break 3-2 in the second and held her service to go ahead 4-2. She cruised to a 6-2 win in the set and is now 10-4 in duals this season.
Murray and freshman Stacey Lee were both engaged in tight matches from the start, with each seeing their first sets pushed to a tiebreaker. At No. 3 against Mahtani, Murray fell behind 5-4 in the breaker but came back to win 7-5, winning the set 7-6. Leading 3-1 in the second, Murray retained all the momentum and eventually served out the match to win 6-2, scoring the clinching point for the 'Cats.
In her first-set breaker at No. 6, Lee jumped to a 5-0 lead over Michelle Sulahian and held on to win it 7-3 and take the set 7-6. Like Murray, Lee took a 3-1 lead in the second and was unchallenged on her way to a 6-2 set victory.
Rose rebounded after her doubles loss to post a win in her No. 2 match to help fuel NU's dominance in singles competition. Rose turned in a 6-3 win in the first set against Sugiyama but couldn't pull away in the second where Sugiyama held serve to even the score at five. She notched the pivotal break in the next game and won the set 7-5. In the match tiebreaker, Rose was in control the whole way and eventually won 10-4.
The last match on the courts was Lui's fourth singles match, where after taking the first set against Denise Muresan 6-4, Lui broke the Wolverine's serve in the fourth game of the second set to go up 3-1. But that was when Muresan found her game and managed to win the next five games to take the set 6-3. In the third, it was back and forth all the way until Muresan notched a break down the stretch to win the deciding set 6-3 and pull back a point for Michigan.
No. 1 Northwestern 6, No. 16 Michigan 1
Singles
1: No. 2 Maria Mosolova (NU) def. No. 111 Rika Tatsuno (UM), 6-3, 6-2
2: No. 20 Georgia Rose (NU) def. No. 59 Chisako Sugiyama (UM), 6-3, 5-7, 1-0 (4)
3: No. 47 Samantha Murray (NU) def. Tania Mahtani (UM), 7-6 (5), 6-2
4: Denise Muresan (UM) def. No. 104 Lauren Lui (NU), 4-6, 6-3, 6-3
5: Nazlie Ghazal (NU) def. Lindsey Howard (UM), 6-4, 6-0
6: Stacey Lee (NU) def. Michelle Sulahian (UM), 7-6 (3), 6-2
Order of finish: 5, 1, 3*, 2, 6, 4
Doubles
1: No. 31 Sugiyama/Mahtani (UM) def. No. 12 Rose/Lui (NU), 8-7 (4)
2: No. 52 Mosolova/Robison (NU) def. Howard/Muresan (UM), 8-1
3: Chernyakova/Murray (NU) def. Tatsuno/Sulahian (UM), 8-1
Order of finish: 2, 3, 1