April 18, 2009
Results
EVANSTON, Ill. -- With spring in the air in Evanston, No. 1 Northwestern played its first outdoor home dual of the year and sprinted to a 7-0 sweep of No. 39 Ohio State at the Vandy Christie Tennis Center. NU's victory sets the stage for a regular season Big Ten title-clinching match at noon Sunday when the Wildcats play host to Penn State on Senior Day.
The predicted rain in Sunday's forecast will likely send the action back inside to the Combe Tennis Center on the lakefront.
The Wildcats are once again in a position to not only win the Big Ten regular season crown but to do so in dominant fashion. Northwestern, now 21-1 overall and 9-0 in conference play, has gone unbeaten in league competition each of the past four seasons.
The battle for the doubles point turned out to be a tense one as both the first and third doubles matches came down to the wire. But that was not the case at the second spot where 39th-ranked Maria Mosolova and Keri Robison continued to cruise through the Big Ten with an 8-1 victory over Cami Hubbs and Julie Blackmore of Ohio State.
No. 19 Georgia Rose and Lauren Lui were in a back-and-forth affair from the start against No. 89 Angela DiPastina and Christina Keesey. Neither team was able to gain a break advantage throughout the match but the Buckeyes were on the verge of a win with an 8-7 lead. NU responded to win the ensuing game as the match entered a tiebreak, where Rose and Lui went up 5-2 in the extra session and held on to win 7-4 when an Ohio State lob landed just beyond the baseline.
At No. 3, Elena Chernyakova and Samantha Murray jumped to a 5-2 lead before Kirsten Flower and Paloma Escobedo climbed back to within 5-4. The Buckeyes evened things at six before Chernyakova and Murray put the match away with back-to-back wins to take an 8-6 decision, winning their 11th straight dual match.
The sunshine that was present to start the match was replaced by cloud cover just prior to the start of singles but NU moved quickly to clinch the victory, winning without dropping a set in singles play. Northwestern received strong performances across the board, beginning at the No. 3 position where Murray won handily against Christina Keesey, 6-1, 6-2, to win her 30th singles match this season.
At sixth singles, Robison posted her fourth consecutive 6-0 set victory dating to last Saturday's match at Minnesota to take the lead on OSU's Julie Blackmore. Robison held on in the second to win 6-2 as the second Wildcat off the courts in singles.
The clinching fourth point for NU came courtesy of Lauren Lui at the fourth spot as she defeated Cami Hubbs, 6-1, 6-2. Senior Nazlie Ghazal followed suit in her fifth singles match, downing Angela DiPastina 6-4, 6-1 to improve to 38-1 all-time in Big Ten dual matches.
Mosolova, who earlier this week returned to the top spot in the ITA national singles rankings, took down OSU's Kirsten Flower, 6-2, 6-1, tucking a cross-court winner into the corner on match point.
Rose trailed by an early 2-0 score in her second singles match against Escobedo but took over from there, winning the first set 6-2 and breaking the Buckeye's serve to start the second en route to a 2-0 advantage. She eventually led 4-0 before Escobedo reeled off three game wins in a row, but Rose slammed the door over the next two games to win her 22nd singles match of the year while improving to 28-2 in her Big Ten dual career.
No. 1 Northwestern 7, No. 39 Ohio State 0
Singles
1: No. 1 Maria Mosolova (NU) def. Kirsten Flower (OSU), 6-2, 6-1
2: No. 22 Georgia Rose (NU) def. Paloma Escobedo (OSU), 6-2, 6-3
3: No. 47 Samantha Murray (NU) def. Christina Keesey (OSU), 6-1, 6-2
4: No. 117 Lauren Lui (NU) def. Cami Hubbs (OSU), 6-1, 6-2
5: Nazlie Ghazal (NU) def. Angela DiPastina (OSU), 6-4, 6-1
6: Keri Robison (NU) def. Julie Blackmore (OSU), 6-0, 6-2
Doubles
1: No. 19 Lui/Rose (NU) def. No. 89 DiPastina/Keesey (OSU), 9-8 (4)
2: No. 39 Mosolova/Robison (NU) def. Hubbs/Blackmore (OSU), 8-1
3: Chernyakova/Murray (NU) def. Flower/Escobedo (OSU), 8-6
Order of Finish:
Singles (3, 6, 4*, 1, 5, 2)
Doubles (2, 1, 3)